Preamble

The House met at a Quarter before Three of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

Private Bills (Group D),

Mr. David Reid reported from the Committee on Group D of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Wednesday, 18th April, at Eleven of the clock.

Report to lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — COTTON INDUSTRY (WAGE AGREEMENTS).

Captain FULLER: 4.
asked the Minister of Labour if he has any statement to make on the legalisation of the cotton trade wage agreements arising from joint proposals placed before him by a recent deputation?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of LABOUR (Mr. R. S. Hudson): This matter is still under active examination but it is not yet possible to announce a decision.

Oral Answers to Questions — AIR DEFENCE (GAS MASKS).

Captain CUNNINGHAM-REID: 6.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will see that gas masks are provided for the civilian population and also instruction for their use?

The Secretary of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir John Gilmour): I regret I cannot add anything to the answer which I gave on the 23rd November last to questions by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Kingston-upon-Hull (Brigadier-General Nation) and by the hon. Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Mander).

Captain CUNNINGHAM-REID: In view of the fact that I am aware of that answer and that it did not give a definite reply to my present question, would it now be possible for the right hon. Gentleman to give me a definite "Yes" or "No"?

Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir. I can add nothing to what I have said.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE.

PRECIOUS METALS (DEALERS' REGISTRATION).

Mr. LEWIS: 7.
asked the Home Secretary when he hopes to be in a position to make a statement as to the Government's policy with regard to the registration of dealers in gold and silver articles?

Sir J. GILMOUR: As I stated recently, my Department is in communication with chief officers of police on the subject, but I cannot say at present when I may be in a position to formulate any proposals.

BRITISH AND RUSSIAN SHIPS (LIABILITY TO ARREST).

Mr. KINGSLEY GRIFFITH: 45.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the anxiety and risk caused to British shipowners by the fact that, in the event of a collision between British and Russian ships, the Russian vessel enjoys immunity against arrest in a British port by reason of state ownership; and whether any steps have been taken or are in contemplation with a view to securing the interests of British shipping in such circumstances?

The PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Runciman): The answer to the first part of the question is in the negative. The second part does not, therefore, arise.

Mr. GRIFFITH: Is it not an intolerable position that the vessels of one particular country should enjoy privileges which are not enjoyed by the corresponding vessels of other countries and not enjoyed by British vessels in Russian ports?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: So far as I know the question has not arisen.

BUILDING AND KOAD MATERIALS (MEASUREMENT STANDARD).

Mr. MITCHESON: 46.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can now state when the Bill will be introduced to deal with the standardisation of the measurement for the sale of ballast, sand, building and other road-making materials?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: The proposals put forward by the committee of the British Standards Institution on behalf of the trade interests concerned have given rise to certain difficulties in view of the existing provisions of the Weights and Measures Acts. The Board of Trade are at present engaged in drafting provisions on the subject, but I regret that I cannot say as yet when it may be possible to introduce legislation on the subject.

PROVISION TRADE, SCOTLAND (HAM SUPPLIES).

Mr. LEONARD: 47 and 48.
asked the President of the Board of Trade (1) if his attention has been drawn to the relative importance of ham as against bacon in the Scottish provision trade; and will he give these commodities separate consideration in the course of the application of his power to restrict imports; and
(2) if he is aware of the developing shortage of supplies facing ham curers and the cooked-meat section of the provision trade in Scotland, making probable an increase in unemployment and in prices; and what steps he proposes to take to allow adequate supplies of fresh, frozen, or cured hams to reach these traders pending home pig producers being able to meet the demand?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am aware of the importance of ham in the Scottish provision trade, and careful consideration has been given to the matter. As regards supplies of frozen pork for curing in this country, arrangements are being made to assign to the United States of America a special allocation for this purpose based upon past trade. An allocation for the same purpose has already been made to Argentina.

Mr. LEONARD: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether in the arrangement to which he has referred, recognition has been given to the fact that during the War the apportionment was 8 per cent. ham and 15 per cent. bacon, and
will the arrangement that is made meet all the requirements of the Scottish provision trade as represented by chambers of commerce to his Department?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid that I cannot answer without notice the detailed question which has been put to me.

TEXTILES (ANGLO-JAPANESE NEGOTIATIONS).

Mr. REMER: 49.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he can now make a statement as to the progress of the negotiations between the Lancashire and Japanese textile interests yesterday?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: As my hon. Friend is no doubt aware, following a meeting with the Japanese delegation yesterday morning, the United Kingdom delegation stated in a Press communiqué that they had found it impossible to reach a basis for discussion and that nothing remained for them but to report this result to His Majesty's Government, at whose instance the meetings had taken place. The delegation reported accordingly yesterday afternoon. It will be remembered that these negotiations were arranged as a result of discussions between His Majesty's Government and the Government of Japan. That being so, it becomes necessary now for the two Governments to review the situation that arises as a result of the breakdown. I have accordingly arranged to see the Japanese Ambassador forthwith. It would be premature to make any further statement at the present time.

Mr. REMER: Is it not a fact that these negotiations have been carried on for about 11 months and have the Government made up their mind as to their policy in dealing with matters connected with these negotiations, which have never, as a matter of fact, really began at all? [Interruption.] In view of the unsatisfactory reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise this matter upon the Adjournment at the earliest possible date.

MEAT PRICES.

Mr. FLEMING: 50.
asked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Food Council or the Consumers' Committee has reported any instances of profiteering in the retail price of bacon or meat; and whether proceedings were taken against any profiteer during the last 12 months?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: The answer to both parts of the question is in the negative. There is no power to take proceedings of the kind indicated by my hon. and learned Friend.

Mr. FLEMING: Is the increase in the retail price of bacon in any way due to the operation of the quota system against Denmark?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: I am afraid I could not answer that question without notice.

PAPER MANUFACTURE (NORFOLK REEDS).

Mr. THOMAS COOK: 51.
asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will institute an inquiry into the possibility of giving encouragement to the industry of manufacturing paper from Norfolk reeds?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: The possibility of the use of Norfolk reeds for paper making has recently been considered by the Imperial Institute in conjunction with representatives of the Norfolk reed growers, the technical section of the Paper Makers' Association, the Rural Industries Bureau, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. I understand that the technical difficulties have not yet been overcome.

CANVASSING METHODS.

Mr. MAGNAY (for Mr. DENVILLE): 9.
asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the facts disclosed in recent cases concerning the canvassing methods adopted by certain vendors of vacuum cleaners and other merchandise, he will state what further steps it is intended to take to put an end to those practices?

Sir J. GILMOUR: My attention has not been drawn to the cases referred to by my hon. Friend. If he will furnish particulars, I shall be prepared to give the matter consideration.

COTTON GOODS (IMPORTS).

Mr. McCORQUODALE (for Mr. CROSS): 44.
asked the President of the Board of Trade the values of cotton blankets, quilts, counterpanes, and other bed coverings of cotton imported into this country in the year 1933 and the corresponding imports in the year 1932?

Mr. RUNCIMAN: The total declared value of cotton quilts, counterpanes and other bed coverings, including cotton
blankets, imported into the United Kingdom, was £42,875 in 1933, and £77,462 in 1932.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLITICAL PARTIES (UNIFORMS).

Mr. THORNE: 8.
asked the Home Secretary whether, in the case concerning an attack on a Fascist at Stratford, he is aware that the prosecutor wore the uniform of the British Union of Fascists in the witness box; and whether the Government has yet reached a decision as to whether such uniform is to be recognised as illegal or not?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I am aware that the man assaulted in this case appeared in court wearing the uniform worn by members of the British Union of Fascists. I regret I am not in a position to add anything to the reply which I gave to questions by my hon. Friend the Member for West Leeds (Mr. V. Adams), and my hon. Friend the Member for South Leeds (Mr. Whiteside) on the 20th February last.

Mr. THORNE: May I ask the Home Secretary when he thinks the Government expect to come to a decision about this all-important question so as to prevent these fellows walking about in uniform and carrying india-rubber truncheons and things of that kind?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I can give the hon. Member no answer.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Is the Department keeping its eye—

HON. MEMBERS: Both eyes.

Mr. DAVIES: Yes, both eyes on this matter?

Sir J. GILMOUR: Oh, yes, Sir.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Would it not be more amusing to make everybody wear coloured shirts according to their political views?

Oral Answers to Questions — WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION.

Mr. HUTCHISON: 10.
asked the Home Secretary if he will consider introducing legislation to establish, in connection with workmen's compensation, a schedule of payments in respect of the loss of specific limbs as is the case in connection with war and disability pensions?

Sir J. GILMOUR: This suggestion merits careful examination and had already been noted for consideration when the time comes for a general review of the working of the Acts. I can make no promise at present as to legislation, but my hon. Friend may rest assured that the matter will not be lost sight of.

Mr. T. SMITH: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when we are likely to have a review of the Acts?

Sir J. GILMOUR: No, Sir.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNEMPLOYMENT.

UNEMPLOYED MARCHERS (POLICE).

Mr. CRAVEN-ELLIS: 11.
asked the Home Secretary the estimated cost for police protection and control in respect of the unemployed marchers?

Sir J. GILMOUR: A large number of police were employed in connection with the visit of the hunger marchers to London, and they were obtained mainly by depleting beats and suspending other normal police duties. The actual expenditure incurred in London consisted of overtime pay, refreshment allowances, and travelling, the estimated cost of which was about £2,000.

Mr. CRAVEN-ELLIS: In view of this very heavy expenditure to the taxpayer, can nothing be done to prevent the unemployed being exploited in this manner?

BENEFIT (ECONOMY CUTS).

Mr. McGOVERN (by Private Notice): asked the Attorney-General whether his attention has been drawn to a statement in the "Daily Express" of the 14th March, giving the names of Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Alexander as having voted for dole cuts in the late Labour Cabinet, and proposing to give the names of the other 10 who voted for a similar policy; and if he proposes to institute proceedings under the Official Secrets Acts against this paper?

Mr. MAXTON: Surely, this is a question which the Attorney-General should be present to answer?

Mr. McGOVERN: Notice was given last night.

Mr. MAXTON: Surely there is something very badly wrong if the Attorney-General cannot be here?

Later—

Mr. BUCHANAN: With your permission, Sir, seeing that the Solicitor-General is now present, might we ask for an answer to the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Shettleston (Mr. McGovern)?

The SOLICITOR-GENERAL (Sir Donald Somervell): I have only just come into the House, and have no knowledge of the question, and, therefore, cannot possibly answer it. I can only convey to the House and to the hon. Member who asked the question, knowing nothing of the circumstances, the apology which I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend would be anxious should be expressed. He is in court. That is the whole explanation of how the trouble has arisen. That is all I can say.

Mr. McGOVERN: I accept that. The question was sent in at a late hour last night, and may have been overlooked. I will put it down for Monday.

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL PENITENTIARY CONGRESS.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: 12.
asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that arrangements are now being made to hold the next quinquennial conference of the International Penitentiary Congress at Berlin in 1935; and whether he will request our Prison Commissioners to use their influence to alter the venue to some other country?

Sir J. GILMOUR: I am aware that it is proposed to hold the congress in 1935 at Berlin. The answer to the second part of the question is in the negative.

Mr. DAVIES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chief object of the International Penitentiary Congress is the more humane treatment of prisoners, and, in view of the recent, history of the treatment of prisoners in Germany, does he not think it is anomalous that this congress should meet in Germany?

Lieut.-Colonel SANDEMAN ALLEN: May I ask if my right hon. Friend considers that questions such as this are in the best interest of international peace and co-operation?

Oral Answers to Questions — HOUSING.

OGMORE AND GAKW (RENTS).

Mr. EDWARD WILLIAMS: 13.
asked the Minister of Health whether he is prepared to take steps to meet the representations of the Ogmore and Garw Urban District Council for a reduction in the weekly rental of council houses?

The Minister of HEALTH (Sir Hilton Young): The representations of the urban district council with regard to the rents of 1919 Act houses have been fully considered, and I am satisfied that, having regard to the Statutory Rules governing these rents for the purpose of determining the amount of Exchequer subsidy, there is no ground for a reduction in the present rental income.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a number of the houses owned by this council are vacant because of the high rentals, and does he not appreciate that something ought to be done?

Sir H. YOUNG: I need not assure the hon. Member that all the circumstances of the case received consideration.

SLUM CLEABANCE (COLLYHUEST, MANCHESTEB).

Mr. CHORLTON: 16.
asked the Minister of Health when the inquiry into the Collyhurst slum-clearance area in Manchester will take place?

Sir H. YOUNG: The town council have not yet submitted to me any order in connection with the Collyhurst clearance area, and until that has been done the date of the inquiry cannot be fixed.

Mr. CHORLTON: May I ask what is the limit of time within which they must submit the scheme?

Sir H. YOUNG: I am afraid I must ask my hon. Friend for notice in order to verify the date.

Oral Answers to Questions — PUBLIC HEALTH.

WATER SUPPLIES (REGIONAL COMMITTEES).

Mr. CHORLTON: 17.
asked the Minister of Health if he has now been able to set up the further committees for regional areas, in order completely to cover the whole country; and, if not, when he will be in a position to announce this piece of organisation of water supply?

Sir H. YOUNG: Measures have been taken for the appointment at an early date of two additional regional committees covering large areas. The subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Water is actively engaged in considering what further regions are suitable for the formation of committees.

Mr. LEVY: Will these committees have any statutory authority at all, or merely act in an advisory capacity?

Sir H. YOUNG: These committees are set up in accordance with statutory provisions.

BIRTH CERTIFICATES.

Mr. HUTCHISON: 18.
asked the Minister of Health whether he will state the reasons for the different wording of birth certificates at the beginning of the century and now; why some or all of the earlier birth certificates contained the name of the person whom they concerned whereas the later birth certificates merely give a number and the sex of the person whose birth is registered; and whether, in view of the fact that a birth certificate is essential to most people, including the unemployed, and payment has to be made for it, he will consider reverting to the earlier form of certificate which gave all the information of identity required?

Sir H. YOUNG: There has never been any change in the wording of birth certificates in England and Wales, which, as certified copies of an entry in the birth register, have always contained the full particulars as registered in accordance with the law. If my hon. Friend has in mind the "certificate of registry," the form of which was revised some four years ago, this is an entirely different document, issued purely as an acknowledgment that the statutory duty of registering a birth has been discharged. For unemployment insurance and numerous other purposes arising out of social legislation birth certificates containing full particulars are obtainable at the special cheap rate of sixpence.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE.

CIVIL ESTIMATES.

Mr. MITCHESON: 21.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer the increase or
decrease in the Civil Estimates for 1934, as compared with those for 1931, omitting from the former the provision for transitional benefit which in 1931 was being defrayed out of borrowed money?

The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Chamberlain): I am sending my hon. Friend an extract from the Budget speech of last April in which I explained the difficulties of taking any Estimates for 1931 as a basis for comparison with subsequent years. The main difficulty of course is that the original Civil Estimates for 1931 proved unsound and had to be revised within a few months. I would also remind my hon. Friend that the sums amounting to £39,610,000 which were borrowed on account of unemployment in 1931 were not in respect of transitional benefit but of insurance benefit. If these sums are added to the original Civil Estimates for 1931 which included £30,000,000 for transitional payments the total is £357,421,992. The total for 1934, which includes £45,830,000 in respect of transitional payments, is £335,603,157. But no useful comparison of these two figures can be made for the reason which I have already given.

NATIONAL SAVINGS.

Mr. MITCHESON: 22.
asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will furnish an estimate of the aggregate savings of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom in national savings certificates, in all savings banks, building societies, approved societies under national health insurance, provident societies, the funds of industrial insurance companies, and all other similar registered forms of thrift in relation to which statistics are published by Government Departments?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: As the answer contains a great number of figures I will, with my hon. Friend's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. THORNE: Can the right hon. Gentleman state from memory the amount of profit which the Government made out of the people's money invested in the Post Office Savings Bank?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir.

Following is the answer:

The following are the main figures customarily given in calculations of the
nature of that suggested in the question. There are sometimes added ordinary life assurance and an allowance for the equity value of the borrowers' interest in property financed by building societies, but these are not included in the figures below.

It should be noted that

(a)it is not practicable to frame an estimate of the extent to which these aggregate savings are attributable to the small saver; the proportion probably varies in each case;
(b) as far as possible duplication in the figures has been eliminated, but there still remains a certain amount which cannot be definitely ascertained;
(c) in certain cases, not a very important part of the total, the figures given are believed to include sums which are in the nature of reserves;
(d) the "latest available" figures are for the savings banks and savings certificates, those actually current, but for most of the other heads the latest published figures are those at the end of 1932.

1930.
Latest available.



£m.
£m.


National Savings Certificates*
489
480


Post Office Savings Bank*
290
331


Trustee Savings Banks*
133
172


Birmingham Municipal Bank
13
15


Post Office Register (nominal value)
228
224


Building Societies (Share Capital, Deposits, etc.)
365
464


Industrial and Provident Societies
167½
182


Industrial Assurance
267
300


Societies registered under the Friendly Societies Acts
115
126


Accumulated Funds under the National Health Insurance Acts
126½
127½


Registered Superannuation, etc., Trust Funds
38
41½


Trade Unions
12
11½


Railway Savings Banks
17
17½



2,261
2,492


* Including estimated accrued interest.

ASSESSMENTS.

Mr. BROCKLEBANK: 23.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury whether any account is kept of assessments found to be excessive on legal grounds after the signing of the statutory certificates; and, if so, what was the sum involved in the last year?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): The only information available on the subject which I understand that my hon. Friend has in mind is that furnished by the Comptroller and Auditor-General in his Report on the Appropriation Accounts of the Revenue Department. My hon. Friend will find certain figures for the year to end of October, 1932, in paragraph 6 of the Comptroller and Auditor-General's Report for the year 1932 which was recently published as a White Paper.

Mr. BROCKLEBANK: Can my hon. Friend give more details in the OFFICIAL REPORT of this large sum of £8,736,000?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I do not quite follow what my hon. Friend means by details. The figure to which he has referred is in the publication mentioned as the total figure.

Mr. BROCKLEBANK: Can my hon. Friend give some further information about this large figure?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I will endeavour to give my hon. Friend any information which he particularises that he desires.

Oral Answers to Questions — LAND VALUATION DEPARTMENT.

Captain DOWER: 24.
asked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury how many officials are still engaged in registering transfers on the sale of land, granting of leases, and transfer of sale of leases as required under Section 28 of the Finance Act, 1931, land values tax; and how much this has cost the Exchequer to date?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: The number of officials employed is 32. The cost to the Exchequer to date is approximately £12,000.

Captain DOWER: As the Department was formed for the purpose of compiling a register upon which land taxes would be charged, and since those taxes have been indefinitely postponed, can my hon. Friend inform the House what this Department's additional indispensability is that prevents us from stopping this wasteful expenditure of public money?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I think that my hon. Friend knows, as he has participated in the discussions, that this
question has been debated in the House. In his question he only asks for certain figures, and I have given them. He cannot expect me to go further now.

Captain DOWER: Will my hon. Friend give me that information if I table a further question?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Certainly, I will give my hon. Friend any information that I can.

Oral Answers to Questions — AGRICULTURE.

PIG SUPPLIES.

Sir GIFFORD FOX: 26.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is now satisfied that a sufficient number of suitable pigs required for the bacon scheme will be forthcoming; and whether he is making any additional announcement on the subject?

The Minister of AGRICULTURE (Mr. Elliot): I have not yet been furnished with final figures of the pigs contracted to be delivered to curers during the current period, but I hope to be in a position to announce the figures in a few days.

Mr. MANDER: 30.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware that, owing to the operation of the pig marketing scheme, many pig curers have been obliged to put their men on short time owing to the inability of the board to supply pigs; and if he will consider raising the restriction on foreign imports of pigs in order to increase employment among and supply bacon to people of this country?

Mr. ELLIOT: As regards the first part of the question, I do not think I can usefully add to what I said in the reply I gave to a similar question by the hon. Member on 8th March. I am satisfied that the confirmation of the contracts submitted for registration is being dealt with expeditiously by the Pigs Marketing Board. As regards the last part of the question, I think the hon. Member must be under some misapprehension. The importation of pigs into this country from foreign countries has been prohibited for many years under the Diseases of Animals Acts in view of the danger of introduction of foot-and-mouth disease. I could not entertain any proposal for the removal of these restrictions.

MILK SUPPLY (HOSPITALS).

Sir ALFRED BEIT: 28.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of his recent announcement with regard to the disposal of the surplus milk supply, he will make the same concession of cheap milk to hospitals as he proposes to do in the case of schools?

Mr. ELLIOT: As indicated in the statement which I made on the 22nd February, it will be for the Milk Marketing Boards to frame proposals for expenditure from the milk publicity fund. The approved programme is required to contain, inter alia, provision for the supply of milk to schools at reduced rates, so that it will be open to the boards to consider other suggestions such as that put forward by my hon. Friend.

ALLOTMENTS, WOLVERHAHPTON.

Mr. MANDER: 29.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he is aware of the difficulty of the members of the Woden Allotment Association, Wolverhampton, in obtaining allotments; and whether he will take steps to assist the Corporation of Wolverhampton to make provision as required on as permanent a basis as possible?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am inquiring into the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Member and will inform him of the result as soon as possible.

EGGS (SUPPLY SITUATION).

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 31.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that eggs were selling for 8d. a dozen in Devonshire last week; and whether he proposes to take any immediate action to secure a remunerative price to producers?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am aware of the low prices at present ruling in the egg market. As my hon. and gallant Friend will be aware, the question whether the existing Customs duties on foreign eggs should be supplemented by a measure of supply regulation has been the subject of careful consideration by the Market Supply Committee. In the light of the Committee's recommendation and having regard to all the circumstances, the Government do not propose to embark on any long-term plan for dealing with the supply situation at this stage, particularly as a Reorganisation Commission has that question before it. In view, however, of
the rapid expansion of the home industry, the situation would be gravely prejudiced if the recent marked increases in imports were to continue. In order, therefore, to hold the situation for the time being, the Governments of the exporting countries concerned are being asked in the general interest to make every effort to ensure that their exports to this market during the period beginning to-day and ending on 14th September next, do not exceed the figures of the corresponding period last year. The Government have every hope of securing a favourable response.

Sir PERCY HURD: Does that apply to the Dominions?

Mr. ELLIOT: Oh, no, simply to foreign countries.

Sir P. HURD: Is any request being made to the Dominions to make a corresponding decrease?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid that is a separate point, of which I should require notice.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a very large number of eggs come from Australia?

Lieut-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 33.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the present low price of eggs and the large importation of eggs from foreign countries, he will take immediate steps to prevent foreign eggs being sold as new laid?

Mr. ELLIOT: I would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that since all foreign eggs are either marked with the word "foreign" or with a direct indication of the country of origin on the shell, consumers are enabled to form their own opinion as to the value of the description "New Laid" as applied to such eggs. In any case I think that there is little doubt that the question can reasonably be left to the consideration of the Reorganisation Commission for Eggs and Poultry.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when the commission will deal with it?

Mr. ELLIOT: I cannot say. It will be a matter of at least a couple of months, I should think.

BEEF PRICES.

Lieut-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: 32.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether he is aware that, in spite of the restrictions imposed, there has been practically no increase in the wholesale price of beef; and whether he proposes to take any further action in the immediate future to secure a remunerative price to producers?

Mr. ELLIOT: The reply to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. With regard to the immediate future, the rate of reduction in imports of foreign frozen meat in the coming quarter will be increased to 35 per cent., and I hope to arrange a rather larger reduction in imports of foreign chilled beef than in the same quarter of 1933. The question of the number of fat cattle to be admitted from the Irish Free State is under consideration. As my hon. and gallant Friend will be aware, the present low level of prices is partly due to a heavy rate of marketing from home sources. The situation will be re-examined in the light of the report of the Fatstock Commission, which I expect shortly to receive.

EARLY POTATOES (IMPORTS).

Major HILLS: 34.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the heavy supplies of home-grown potatoes at low prices and of the efforts now being made by the newly-constituted Potato Marketing Board to find a satisfactory market for these supplies, the Government will drastically reduce the imports of early potatoes, especially from Spain?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am not at present in a position to add to my reply of 1st March to the hon. and gallant Member for Barkston Ash (Colonel Ropner), of which I am sending my right hon. and gallant Friend a copy.

Major HILLS: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that growers are seriously alarmed about the situation?

Mr. ELLIOT: Yes, Sir, but, as my right hon. and gallant Friend knows, in the first three months the imports of early potatoes are not very large.

Mr. RHYS DAVIES: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that early potatoes are produced in Spain at least two months earlier than they can be in this country?

MILK AND MILK PRODUCTS.

Sir WILLIAM LANE MITCHELL (for Mr. HERBERT WILLIAMS): 27.
asked the Minister of Agriculture if he can state the consumption of milk and milk products in terms of liquid milk in 1933 and 1929 respectively; and what percentage was produced in the United Kingdom in each year respectively?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement giving the desired information.

Following is the statement:

It is only possible to give United Kingdom figures for liquid milk on an estimate based on 4th June returns for the respective years of numbers of cows, allowing a yield per cow based on the estimate arrived at in the census year 1930–31 (539 gallons per cow per year in England and Wales; 408 gallons per cow per year in Scotland).

The following figures must, therefore, be accepted with certain reservations.


Supplies of Milk and Milk Products in terms of Milk.


—
1929.
1933.(b)


Home Production.
million gallons.
million gallons.


England and Wales(c)
1,265
1,368


Scotland (c)
164
171


Northern Ireland (a)
90
90


Total United Kingdom.
1,519
1,629


Imports (net).
Milk Equivalent. million gallons.
Milk Equivalent. million gallons.


Butter
1,655
2,307


Cheese
326
335


Condensed etc. Milk
104
100


Cream
21
17


Milk
1
1


Total
2,107
2,760


Total Home Production and Imports.
3,626
4,389


Percentage produced in United Kingdom.
41.9
37.1


(a) The numbers of milch cows in 1929 and 1933 were about equal to the average number in 1924–25, and therefore the estimated figures of the 1924–25 census are adopted.


(b) Provisional figures.


(c) Based on the estimated yield per cow in the census year 1930–31.

Oral Answers to Questions — REGENT'S PARK (PLANTS).

Captain CUNNINGHAM-REID: 37.
asked the First Commissioner of Works if the flowers and plants committee of the Ministry of Agriculture has made any recommendations to him affecting Regent's Park?

The FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. Ormsby-Gore): My Department is at present co-operating with the committee in arranging a collection of British grown plants and shrubs in the Inner Circle Gardens, Regent's Park.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE (LUBRICATING OIL).

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 38.
asked the Under-Secretary of State for Air from what countries it is possible to obtain, in large quantities, lubricating oil of the type used by the Royal Air Force, and from which of these countries it was obtained in 1933?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for AIR (Sir Philip Sassoon): The United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics are at present the main sources of world supply of lubricating oil of the type required by the Royal Air Force. The supplies obtained in 1933 were blended from components derived from these two countries.

Captain Sir WILLIAM BRASS: Is it not a fact that the Air Ministry are encouraging the coal industry in this country to produce lubricating oil for the Royal Air Force?

Sir P. SASSOON: As my hon. and gallant Friend knows, it is only a special kind of oil which possesses the necessary lubricating properties for high-efficiency aircraft engines.

Oral Answers to Questions — AVIATION.

CROYDON AIRPORT.

Sir A. BEIT: 39.
asked the Undersecretary of State for Air whether he is in a position to make a statement as to the present intention with regard to the removal of the airport from Croydon and its establishment in the West of London outside the fog area; and what estimate has been formed of the probable cost?

Sir P. SASSOON: There is no such intention. The aerodrome at Croydon was retained and developed as the Government-owned Airport of London after an exhaustive examination of alternative sites, and no new circumstances have arisen which would necessitate a change.

Sir A. BEIT: Would it be possible for my right hon. Friend to see that a denial is given in the paper which published the report?

Sir P. SASSOON: They will see my answer.

AIR SERVICES (CHINA).

Captain DOWER: 40.
asked the Undersecretary of State for Air if he is now in a position to make a statement with regard to the desirability of providing a British commercial air-service to China; and whether, in view of the anxiety of the Manchester chamber of commerce, and other British trade organisations, that such facilities should be available at the earliest possible date, he will ensure that there shall be no delay on account of the need for assistance, financially or otherwise?

Sir P. SASSOON: I regret that I am not yet in a position to add to the reply which I gave to my hon. and gallant Friend so recently as 8th February last.

Captain DOWER: Can my right hon. Friend say when he hopes to be in a position to make a statement?

Sir P. SASSOON: The whole matter is under active consideration, and parts two and three of the question will be specially borne in mind.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTLAND (METHYLATED SPIRIT DRINKING).

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 42.
asked the Secretary of State for Scotland the number of persons convicted in Scotland during each of the past five years for drunkenness attributed to the drinking of methylated spirit, giving separate figures for Glasgow?

The LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. Normand): My right hon. Friend proposes, with the hon. Member's permission, to circulate the answer in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Can my right hon. and learned Friend give the figure for last year—a single figure?

The LORD ADVOCATE: In the six named burghs 1,002, and in Glasgow 629.

Following is the answer:

Figures are not available for Scotland as a whole, but returns in respect of six burghs (Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, Perth, Inverness and Stirling) show that the number of persons convicted of offences involving drunkenness due to the drinking of methylated spirit has been as follows:


Year ended 30th April.
In the six named burghs.
In Glasgow only.


1929
…
…
1,017
744


1930
…
…
963
667


1931
…
…
1,031
698


1932
…
…
1,106
671


1933
…
…
1,002
629

These figures include a considerable number of repeated convictions in respect of the same persons.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAVAL AND MILITARY PENSIONS AND GRANTS.

Mr. T. COOK: 52.
asked the Minister of Pensions whether, in view of the dissatisfaction amongst the ex-service community regarding Form M.P.W. 31, which is issued to the widows of ex-service men in connection with their claims to pension, and of the confusion in the minds of war widows as to their right of appeal to an independent tribunal in certain cases, he will arrange that some notification is included on the claim forms which will clearly indicate to the widow what right of independent appeal is open to her?

The Minister of PENSIONS (Major Tryon): The purpose of the form in question is to enable the claimant to indicate the grounds on which she considers herself entitled to pension. Like all other claim forms, it has never contained any reference to appeal. If the claim is one which carries a right of appeal against its rejection, the widow is clearly notified of that right at the time of rejection.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT.

ROAD ACCIDENTS.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: 53.
asked the Minister of Transport when he will be in a position to introduce legislation to reduce road accidents?

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of TRANSPORT (Lieut.-Colonel Headlam): My hon. Friend hopes to introduce a Bill on this subject before Easter.

Sir W. BRASS: Is the hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that the public are looking to the Minister of Transport to act quickly in this matter and will he take action as soon as possible?

MOTOR INSURANCE (HOSPITALS).

Mr. LECKIE: 54.
asked the Minister of Transport whether, in view of the financial strain upon voluntary hospitals caused by treating persons injured by motor accidents on the highways, he will introduce a short Bill compelling insurance companies which cover third-party risks to pay adequate remuneration to the hospitals for their services in these cases?

Lieut.-Colonel HEADLAM: The Road and Rail Traffic Act, which has just come into operation, amended the provisions of the Road Traffic Act of 1930 in regard to payments to hospitals and it would, I think, be premature to consider further amending legislation now.

Oral Answers to Questions — POST OFFICE.

PENSION PAYMENTS, LEWIS.

Mr. THOMAS RAMSAY: 55.
asked the Postmaster-General what reply he has made to the copy of a letter from nine pensioners complaining about the shortage of cash at the Post Office at Lemreway, Lewis, whereby they were kept four or five days before they received payments; and will he say when he proposes to remedy this state of affairs?

The POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Sir Kingsley Wood): As I only received the copy of the letter in question yesterday, I am not yet in a position to reply; but I am having inquiry made into the complaint and will let my hon. Friend know the result as soon as possible.

MOTOR VEHICLES.

Mr. T. SMITH: 56.
asked the Postmaster-General whether all motor vehicles now owned or controlled by his Department are of British manufacture?

Sir K. WOOD: All motor vehicles owned by the Post Office are of British manufacture, though 153 out 8,676 contain a small percentage of foreign components. All the principal mail contractors use vans of British manufacture. Precise particulars of the vehicles employed on the numerous minor contract mail services in the provinces are not available, but so far as I am aware such vehicles are mostly of British origin.

LETTER DELIVERIES.

Mr. LECKIE: 57.
asked the Postmaster-General whether he will consider extending the arrangements which he has just announced for an evening delivery of letters in certain towns adjoining the London postal area to all towns throughout the country with a population exceeding 100,000?

Sir K. WOOD: I have considered this question, but no not propose at present to extend the late delivery to towns throughout the country.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH ARMY (ROYAL ARTILLERY OFFICERS).

Captain CUNNINGHAM-REID: 59.
asked the Financial Secretary to the War Office how many Majors of the Royal Artillery whose last command was a mechanically-drawn battery have been recommended and passed over, respectively, for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel during the past two years, and the corresponding figure for Majors whose last command was a horse-drawn battery?

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): During the last two years 31 Majors, Royal Artillery, whose last command was a mechanically-drawn battery were considered for promotion to Lieutenant-Colonel, and 14 were not selected. The corresponding figures in the case of Majors whose last command was a horse-drawn battery were 39 and 8 respectively.

Oral Answers to Questions — KENYA.

Mr. MALLALIEU: 58.
asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the case in Kenya Colony of the dispute between two natives as to the ownership of a few eucalyptus trees, worth a few shillings; how many years was involved in hearing the case; how many courts heard it; what was the total cost of the legal proceedings; and what action he proposes to take to prevent a repetition of such prolonged and costly proceedings?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for DOMINION AFFAIRS (Mr. Malcolm MacDonald): I have been asked to reply. I have no knowledge of this case; the Governor of Kenya is being asked for a report on the matter.

Oral Answers to Questions — GERMAN UNIVERSITIES (MILITARY SCIENCE CHAIRS).

Mr. MANDER: 60.
asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will direct the British Ambassador in Berlin to obtain information with reference to the chairs of military science which have been established recently at most of the German universities; and if he will obtain the names of these universities and information as to whether they are privately endowed or subsidised by the Government?

The UNDER-SECRETARY of STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. Eden): I am informed that there are chairs of "Wehrwissenschaft" (or of the "Science of Defence") at the Technical High School at Berlin, and at the Institute for military history and "Wehrwissenschaft," which was opened at Heidelberg last May. These are, according to my information, the only two chairs in this science established in Germany at the present time. As regards the second part of the question, education in Germany is controlled and financed by the Government.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL STUD AND FARM.

Mr. TURTON: 35.
asked the Minister of Agriculture whether, in view of the fact that the working of the national stud and farm at Tully, county Kildare, during the year 1932, resulted in a net loss of £15,278, and that the fees earned by stud stallions dropped from £5,745 in 1930 to
£47 in 1932, he will consider the desirability of transferring the farm to England?

Mr. ELLIOT: After full examination, I am satisfied that the suggestion made by my hon. Friend is not practicable under existing circumstances.

Mr. ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Are we to understand that there has been a boycot of the stallions at this stud?

Mr. ELLIOT: I am afraid I could not answer that question without notice.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: How big has the loss to be before the stud is transferred?

Mr. ELLIOT: It is not a question of how big the loss, but of how big the improvement would be in the situation if we removed it somewhere else.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEMYSS GOAL COMPANY (NOTICES OF DISMISSAL).

Mr. HENDERSON STEWART: 43.
asked the Secretary for Mines if he is aware that 5,000 men have received 15 days' notice to terminate engagement by the Wemyss Coal Company, Limited; and whether he proposes to take any action in the matter?

The SECRETARY for MINES (Mr. Ernest Brown): On at least one previous occasion this colliery company has issued provisional notices of this nature towards the end of the quarter. I observe that the notices posted at the pithead admit that it is expected that sufficient quota will be available to enable the pits to keep working, so that the management apparently do not anticipate that the notices will be operative. My hon. Friend may be interested to know that the recent application made by the Scottish District Executive Board for an increased allocation for the district for the quarter ended 31st March was granted in full.

Oral Answers to Questions — NORTH ATLANTIC SHIPPING BILL.

Mr. ATTLEE (by Private Notice): asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can now make any statement regarding the report that the International Mercantile Marine Company is contemplating legal action to prevent the
completion of the Cunard-White Star merger?

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN: Since the matter was raised last night I have had an opportunity of reading the Press reports from America. The board of the Oceanic Company have been authoritatively advised that they may legally implement their part in the merger scheme without the consent of the American company. I wish, however, to make it plain that, if a contrary decision emerged as a result of legal action, the parties could attain by alternative methods, which could not be open to attack, precisely the result contemplated by the merger agreement; and such methods would be within the scope of the North Atlantic Shipping Bill in its present form. In these circumstances, I have satisfied myself that no reason exists why the House should be deflected from its purpose by any action which may be taken by the International Mercantile Marine Company.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Prime Minister what will be the business for next week; and also whether he can inform the House when the Easter Recess will be taken and when the House will re-assemble, and on what date the Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget?

The PRIME MINISTER (Mr. Ramsay MacDonald) The business for next week will be as follows:

Monday: Supply, 3rd Allotted Day—Report stage of the Navy, Air and Army Estimates; consideration of Motions to approve the Import Duties Exemptions Order No. 2 and Additional Import Duties Orders No. 6 and No. 4; and, if there is time, the Second Reading of the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill and the Committee Stage of the Overseas Trade Bill.

Tuesday: Second Reading of the Illegal Trawling (Scotland) Bill, and of the Assessor of Public Undertakings (Scotland) Bill; Committee stage of the Land Settlement (Scotland) (Money) Resolution; and consideration of Motions to approve the Draft Order made under the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, relating to Scotland, and of the Scheme to regulate the Marketing of Milk in Aberdeen and District.

Wednesday: Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill. I understand that the subject to be raised will be Unemployment.

Thursday: Remaining stages of the Consolidated Fund Bill. I understand that a Debate on Imperial Defence will be raised.

Friday: Private Members' Bills.

On any day, if there is time, other Orders may be taken.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer will open his Budget on Tuesday, the 17th April.

As regards the Easter Recess, we propose that the House shall rise on Thursday, the 29th March, and resume on Monday, the 9th April.

Mr. ATTLEE: May I ask the Prime Minister, with regard to the Debate on Unemployment on the Second Reading of the Consolidated Fund Bill on Wednesday, whether it will be possible for a Minister to be present to give the general policy of the Government with regard to the problem of hard-core unemployment in the distressed areas, as it is the desire of the Opposition to discuss that problem, and not so much the general range of a Departmental question? May I also ask the Prime Minister how far he intends to go to-night in the event of the Motion which stands in his name on the Paper being carried?

The PRIME MINISTER: I will take note of the request of the hon. Gentleman regarding the presence of a Minister on Wednesday. With regard to the proposed suspension of the Eleven o'Clock Rule, the Government do not propose to go further than the first three items on the Order Paper—Supply, Committee; Ways and Means, Committee; and the Third Reading of the North Atlantic Shipping Bill.

Sir HERBERT SAMUEL: With regard to Monday's business, do I understand that the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill will not be taken at a late hour? Might I suggest that it should be put down on some day, not almost at the end of a long list of Orders, but as the first or second Order?

The PRIME MINISTER: My right hon. Friend will have-observed that I said that if there is time the Second Reading
of the British Sugar (Subsidy) Bill will be taken. That means that we shall not take it at an inordinately late hour—the same arrangement that we made before, namely, that it will not be taken unless it is entered into well before Eleven o'Clock.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Really, I would press the Prime Minister that it would not be right that that Bill should be taken at any hour approaching Eleven o'clock. It will be the first occasion on which we shall have had an opportunilty of raising the whole policy. All of the previous Debates have been of a limited character, and there are various Members in different parts of the House who wish to speak on the matter. I submit that the question is one which should be very fully debated, and that to take it even at Ten o'clock would be too late. I suggest that it should be put down for early consideration on some subsequent day.

Mr. MAXTON: I observe that the Prime Minister's statement of business includes no proposal for making further progress with the Unemployment Bill. May I ask him if the attention of the Government has been drawn to the following two Motions which stand on the Order Paper:
That, notwithstanding the adoption by the House of a time-table governing the Debates on any Bill, it shall be the duty of the Chairman to make a report to the House regarding any clauses of the Bill which shall have been passed without debate as a result of the time-table, and thereafter the Bill shall stand re-committed with regard to such clauses for so many days as the House shall determine, such a number of days not being in excess of the number already allotted to the Report stage of such Bill."—[Captain Crookshank.]
That, in the opinion of this House, the existing arrangements for the drawing up of Time-Table Motions for Bills are unsatisfactory, and for the better ordering of debate in the case of Bills subject to such Motions it is desirable that an impartial and representative committee of this House should be set up with authority to determine in all such cases the number of days to be allotted to each stage of the Bill and the precise allocation of time during those days to the various parts of the Bill."—[Mr. Lewis.]
These Motions suggest ways in which the difficulties of the discussion of the Bill might be remedied at a later stage, and I should like to ask the Prime Minister if he will be good enough to see whether an opportunity can be given for discussing these Motions?

The PRIME MINISTER: I am very much obliged to my hon. Friend for having given me notice that he was going to raise this question. I can only say again what has already been stated, namely, that when we have completed the Committee stage of the Unemployment Bill all the considerations on which opinions have been expressed from any quarter of the House bearing upon the progress of that Measure will receive consideration from the Government; and, further, that when the time comes to allot a number of days for the concluding stages of the Bill, it is our intention to consult the Opposition parties and representatives of supporters of the Government, in order to work out a time-table in the most convenient form for the House as a whole.

Sir H. SAMUEL: Does that mean that the Bill is not to be re-committed?

The PRIME MINISTER: The House must please take what I have said for the present.

Mr. LEWIS: Arising out of the Prime Minister's answer, may I ask him whether, seeing that the Motion which stands in my name and those of other Members recommends a course of action which has been recommended by the Select Committee on Procedure, his answer to the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) to-day means that he is so well satisfied with the working of the Guillotine that he does not propose to introduce proposals such as those outlined by the Select Committee on Procedure itself, and does not desire the House of Commons to have an opportunity of discussing the matter?

The PRIME MINKSTER: I really cannot add anything to what I have said. The question that is exercising the mind of the House is how the Bill can be dealt with on the Committee Stage in such a way as to give general satisfaction.

Mr. BUCHANAN: There is a Motion which has been on the Paper for a day or two in the name of the Secretary of State for Scotland dealing with the question

of housing—"That the draft of the Order proposed to be made by the Minister of Health and the Department of Health for Scotland with the approval of the Treasury, under Section five of the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1924, as amended by Section forty-three of the Housing Act, 1930, which was presented on the 28th day of February, 1934, be approved." A serious situation has arisen, particularly in Glasgow and the surrounding districts. I gave notice that I would raise the question on the Adjournment some time ago, but the Adjournment seems to be closed these days. I was wondering if we could be allowed to discuss the matter on the Consolidated Fund Bill.

The PRIME MINISTER: The course of the Debate on the Consolidated Fund Bill does not rest with me.

Mr. MAXTON: I notice that one day has been granted presumably to the official Opposition, and I imagine the second to supporters of the Government. That is quite in accordance with precedent and we are not objecting to it, but I would ask the right hon. Gentleman if out of the two days some time can be found for the discussion of the point put forward by my hon. Friend.

The PRIME MINISTER: That is for Mr. Speaker to decide. It is not within my power.

Mr. DENMAN: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will recall the admirable advice that he himself gave to a Select Committee, that there should be an impartial committee appointed to assist in drawing up time-tables, and enable the House to give effect to that advice?

The PRIME MINISTER: At the moment that question does not arise.

Motion made, and Question put,
That the Proceedings on Government Business be exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of the Standing Order (Sittings of the House)."—[The Prime Minister.]

The House divided: Ayes, 245; Noes, 36.

Boothby, Robert John Graham
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Pearson, William G.


Borodale, Viscount
Hall, Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
Petherick, M.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Hammersley, Samuel S.
Pickering, Ernest H.


Brats, Captain Sir William
Hanbury, Cecil
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Broadbent, Colonel John
Hartington, Marquess of
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Rea, Walter Russell


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsf'd)
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Reid. James S. C. (Stirling)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Remer, John R.


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Hornby, Frank
Ropner, Colonel L.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Runge, Norah Cecil


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Hurd, Sir Percy
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A. (Blrm, W.)
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Choriton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Joel, Dudley J. Barnato
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Christie, James Archibald
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Clarke, Frank
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Phillp A. G. D.


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Savery, Samuel Servlngton


Conant, R. J. E.
Knight, Holford
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Cook, Thomas A.
Law Sir Alfred
Shute, Colonel J. J.


Cooke, Douglat
Leckie, J. A.
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Cooper, A. Dull
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)


Copeland, Ida
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.)


Cranborne, Viscount
Levy, Thomas
Smithers, Waldron


Craven-Ellis, William
Lewis, Oswald
Somervell, Sir Donald


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Locker-Lampion, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd. Gr'n)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galntb'ro)
Loftus, Pierce C.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Crossley, A. C.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Spender-Clay, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.


Davison, Sir William Henry
McConnell, Sir Joseph
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Stevenson, James


Dickie, John P.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Doran, Edward
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Dower, Captain A. V. G.
McKie, John Hamilton
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. (P'dd'gt'n, S.)


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Duggan, Hubert John
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Eden, Robert Anthony
Macquisten, Frederick Alexander
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Magnay, Thomas
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Maitland, Adam
Tree, Ronald


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Making, Brigadier-General Ernest
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Eimley, Viscount
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Turton, Robert Hugh


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Manningham-Butter, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Ersklne-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Martin, Thomas B.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Watt, Captain George Steven H.


Everard, W. Lindsay
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Fermoy, Lord
Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chlsw'k)
Weymouth, Viscount


Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Fleming, Edward Lascelles
Mitcheson, G. G.
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Fox, Sir Gifford
Moreing, Adrian C.
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Fraser, Captain Ian
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Morrison, William Shepherd
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Fuller, Captain A. O.
Most, Captain H. J.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Glimour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd. N.)
North, Edward T.
Young, Ernest J. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Nunn, William



Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro, W.)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Grigg, Sir Edward
Patrick, Colin M.
Mr. Womersley and Major George


Grimston, R. V.
Peake, Captain Osbert
Davies.




NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Cape, Thomas
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Dobbie, William


Batey, Joseph
Cove, William G.
Edwards, Charles


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Daggar, George
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)


Buchanan, George
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Grundy, Thomas W.

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY.

ARMY ESTIMATES, 1934.

Mr. DUFF COOPER'S STATEMENT.

Order for Committee read.

3.45 p.m.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the WAR OFFICE (Mr. Duff Cooper): I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
A few weeks ago I was asked at Question Time to explain the reasons for which the British Army existed. I declined at that time to answer that question, but, in reply to a supplementary question, I said that I would endeavour to deal with it when I came to speak upon the Army Estimates. Certainly it would be a good thing to preface my remarks this evening by clearing our minds as to the reasons for which the Army exists. To-day we are going to vote money to pay for the Army, and it would obviously be undesirable that we should pay for anything the reasons for the existence of which we were not clear about. In my opinion, the Army exists for four different, separate, and specific purposes. If I enumerate those purposes, I wish to make it plain that they are not counted in order of merit, because they are all equally important. The four corners of a house are all equally important to the maintenance of the structure. If one of them falls down the whole building collapses in ruin, and, equally, if the Army fails to fulfil any one of the four purposes for which it exists, then the British Empire itself is in danger of collapse.
One of the first purposes which the Army is there to perform is the protection of our naval bases. It is true that the British Empire depends upon sea power. I do not think that my friends from the Admiralty will be offended if I say that the Navy itself depends to some extent upon land forces. Ships cannot be at sea all the time. They have to come into harbour. They have to be assured of reception, of fuel, of safety all the time, and the means for refitting and refuelling; and those bases to which they return must be protected from land
attack. And so, just as the Empire is held together by the protection which our Navy affords to our trade routes, just as those trade routes are like the invisible steel girders which hold together a great edifice, so those harbours, to which they are obliged to come from time to time, and which are protected by British soldiers, form the joints and the hinges of the vast structure of the British Empire.
Too little is known about this great work which the Army annually performs. Every year the troopships go out unannounced, unostentatiously, without any public manifestation of the vital work which they are carrying on. They stop first at Gibraltar, the gateway of the Mediterranean. Two battalions are left there. They pass on to Malta, in the very centre of that great sea. Again, two more battalions form the garrison. The normal garrison is four, but two battalions are engaged at present in Palestine. They pass on to Egypt and the Sudan, where there are only seven battalions, from whom a small contingent is stationed in the Island of Cyprus, down through the Suez Canal, through the Red Sea, emerging into the Indian Ocean at Aden, which is another vital point, where there is a garrison of some 200 men. Thousands of miles to the South—in the same Indian Ocean—lies the Island of Mauritius, where there is yet a smaller garrison of British troops. Continuing eastward we come to the subcontinent of India and the Island of Ceylon—there again there are ports of vital importance—and, further East, to Malaya, where again one battalion only is left, and so on to China, where at Hong Kong and other stations five battalions are distributed. There we return and begin the process of coming back bringing home the soldiers who have been relieved. Even then they have not completed the orbit of the British Empire, for on the other side of the Pacific Ocean there is yet one more battalion guarding our possessions in the Western Hemisphere at Jamaica and Bermuda. That is one only of the purposes for which the Army exists and is carrying out all the time.
Another purpose for which the Army exists is the defence of certain frontiers and the maintenance of order in certain
territories where we have undertaken a serious obligation. By far the most important of these is India. In comparison with the size of our Army, India occupies an enormous proportion of our forces, but in comparison with the size of the native population and the work they have to do, the number of troops there is infinitesimally small. In Egypt and the Sudan there are battalions to protect those countries, and they are responsible also for the protection of the Suez Canal, that vital link between our eastern and our western Empire. In Palestine there are, as I have already said, two battalions. Here I might remind the House that in 1929 there was disorder in Palestine, riots occurred and the whole matter was inquired into, and when the report was made to the Permanent Mandates Commission of the League of Nations this country was censured for not maintaining more troops in Palestine than we were maintaining at that time. We probably hold the unique privilege among the nations of the world as being the only country that has ever been blamed by the League of Nations for not maintaining adequate armed forces.
Thirdly, the Army exists to protect this country. When I say "thirdly," I should like to emphasise the warning that I gave at the beginning of my speech that I am not enumerating the purposes of the Army in the order of their importance. There is, obviously, nothing of greater importance than the protection of our own homes, the great reserve of the Empire, the arsenal of the Empire and the centre and heart of it. In addition to the three great purposes which I have already mentioned, we have to provide a force which may be called upon to defend the interests of the Empire outside these shores, perhaps in Imperial territory, perhaps in some foreign land; a force which may be called upon to fight in a country which nobody can foretell and under conditions which nobody can foresee. When we read, in the Press and elsewhere, criticisms of the British Army, they are nearly always based upon a view which regards the Army as existing for one only of these four purposes, not remembering the other three, and the last purpose that I have mentioned is the one that is usually uppermost in the minds of the critics. They nearly always write as though the Army existed only to fight a war with a great civilised Power, of which the first
battle would be fought upon Salisbury Plain one day next week.
Let me deal with the various purposes for which the Army exists and in the order that I have enumerated. First of all, there is the protection of naval bases. We are this year spending an additional £450,000 in providing works and buildings at Singapore. The desirability of having a naval base at Singapore is not a matter which we can discuss this afternoon. It has already been settled earlier this week and has been approved by the House. If you have a naval base, you must have troops there to protect it. You need antiaircraft, artillery and men to man the artillery. You also need barracks and houses, buildings of various kinds, schools and other places which the men will require. Upon these things we are spending a comparatively large sum in the present year.
With regard to the movement of troops from place to place, we occasionally meet with criticism. We are asked: "Would it not be better, instead of continually moving the troops, to leave them in one place until they come home again?" That is not an unnatural criticism to spring to the mind, but it is not a good thing for one unit to remain in one place. They may get to think that it is the only place in the world or, on the other hand, the climate may not be suitable for a long stay. More important still is the fact that our Army has to be trained for every need, and, seeing that at many of the stations I have mentioned, there are only small contingents of troops they cannot enjoy the training which they require and they cannot have an opportunity of training on a large scale. For that reason, it is essential, if the Army is to serve every purpose for which it exists, that we should be continually moving troops from one place to another. It would be so much simpler if we could have a large number of armies to carry out different jobs.
There are some individuals who are so fortunate as to be able to afford four motor cars, one for London, another for the country, a third for carrying heavy luggage, and a fourth, a little car, perhaps for work on a farm or some other specific purpose. Those individuals are as fortunate as they are few. A large number of people can afford to have one car, and when they buy it they have to
bear in mind the many purposes for which they may need it, and the result is a compromise. They buy a ear which is not ideally suited to any one purpose, but which, on the whole, will best suit the various purposes for which they may be called upon to use it. In the same way, if we were a country of unlimited means in wealth, in man power, and in material, it would be very convenient to have four armies, one for each of the purposes I have described, but we can only have one Army and that one Army has to be designed on the basis of compromise, with the idea that it has to fulfil all the four purposes for which it is designed.
When we have a small body of troops in a small station far away, we have to remember that that unit may one day be called upon to do exactly the same duty as another unit which is enjoying the best of training at Aldershot, in India or elsewhere, and therefore we cannot always leave that unit in one place. The movement of troops is necessarily complicated and difficult. It needs a great deal of calculation and hard work. If, for instance, a regiment is moved from the West Indies to Egypt and the troopship happens to call for a few hours in a British port, it seems to sentimental people—our people, I am glad to say, are mainly sentimental—a shame that the troops should not be allowed a few days' leave so that they might visit their homes, their native counties, or travel about the country, but if that were allowed it would upset the whole trooping programme at the expense of the taxpayer—although our people are sentimental, they are not very fond of paying taxes, and, although they are continually complaining about necessary expenditure, they are always urging it—it would hold up the ship; it would send the various soldiers who wished to travel across the length and breadth of England to their homes; it would send them away from their regiment for a few days, while the majority probably would not want to travel and would not want to spend their money in that way; and at the end it would always be possible that all the men might not rejoin exactly at the moment when the whistle blew, and that some might be left behind, which would be a loss to the taxpayer, to the British Army and to the men themselves.
But it would also mean that if that was done once it would have to be done on every occasion, and the only result would be that never again would a ship coming from the West Indies be allowed to touch at an English port, and never again would the soldiers enjoy, as they certainly did on this occasion, owing to the admirable arrangements of the railway companies concerned—never again would they be allowed to enjoy a few hours with their own friends and relations. It is not the case, as some hon. Members and some writers think, that every man who joins the Army is separated from his wife. Most people know that a percentage of married soldiers are married "on the strength" of their regiment, and that they take their wives and families with them wherever they go.
So much for the Army abroad. With regard to the Army at home, I am sorry to say that I can no longer give the House a satisfactory report with regard to recruiting. Recruiting was excellent, or at least satisfactory, up to the end of last September. Since then it has fallen off and fallen off very badly. I would like to make an appeal to Members of the House. I know there are some people who think that we should not have an Army, nor a Navy, nor an Air Force—nor, of course, an Empire either, for we cannot have that without the others—and that we should allow anyone, any foreign country, to interfere with our liberties if they wish. Of course, you must surrender what you cannot defend. But I do not think that that view is held largely in this House. It is a logical view and more comprehensible to my mind than the view of some who recognise the necessity for an Army and a Navy and an Air Force, but who do everything in their power to discourage anyone from joining them.
The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, whose prolonged absence from the House and the cause of it we all regret, is one of the principal offenders in this respect. He uses his great influence and eloquence to dissuade people from joining any of the Defence Forces. Perhaps there is still present in the minds of many people who take this attitude, a remnant of the old belief that the Army is not a career for a respectable man. We all suffer for the misdeeds of our ancestors. The soldier of the eighteenth and even of the nineteenth
century was a very different individual from the soldier of to-day. Wellington, whose armies performed such remarkable feats, used the most scathing language in which to describe the character of the men he led. But the modern soldier is a different man. He is not the hard-drinking ne'er-do-well of the past.
I suggest to hon. Members that in these days, when so many boys are faced, almost on leaving school, with the prospect of going straight into the melancholy and tragic army of the unemployed, there still exists a splendid alternative, and that the Army provides a career which any man ought to be glad to see his son embrace. Look at the figures accompanying the Estimates. See how the figures for crime, for instance, that is to say offences against the military code, have fallen. And this is only a continuation of a prolonged decline. The figure is the lowest yet reached. At the same time we see the figures of health better than they have ever been. That applies not only to the Army in England but to the Army in India and abroad. It is quite wrong and misleading to suggest that young men entering the Army and going to India put themselves into any peril in the way of health. On the contrary, the health of men in the Army is a great deal better than the health of the general population outside the Army.
Then take education. It will be seen from the figures how large a number of private soldiers pass high tests in education to-day. The record with regard to vocational training also shows an improvement. More men are passing through these vocational training centres that give a man during the last six months of his service a chance of learning a trade, so that when he comes to the end of his time he does not become a useless supernumerary in the army of the unemployed, but a man who can earn his living in skilled labour. The number this year shows an improvement; more men have passed through the centres, and the number who have gone straight from the centres to employment has risen from 77 per cent. to 85 per cent. That is a very remarkable improvement even in a year of general improvement.
Hon. Members ought to realise what a good life the Army does provide for a young man. When I am asked, as I so
often am, to consider what is called compassionate discharge in the case of young men who have joined the Army in a hurry and want to get out, the main consideration which appeals to me in such cases is whether it can be proved that by their discharge their family will materially benefit. So far as the boy himself is concerned, I have not the slightest doubt that in every case he is much better in the Army than out of it, because of the life in the open air, the attention to health, the good food, the exercise, the splendid comradeship and the great traditions. When a soldier leaves the Army he has behind him the support of his regiment or regimental association, to which he can turn in difficulties. I cannot think of a better opening for a young man to-day, if he means to work and to prosper within the Army. I do not think it is an exaggeration to say that any young man joining the Army, even in these hard times, if he is a worker and means to do well, can look forward to a future of complete security.
Having spoken of the men, there is one point in connection with the officers with which I would like to deal. In the Debate last year I was approached by many hon. Members in different parts of the House with a suggestion that it would be a good thing to amalgamate the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich with the Royal Military College at Sandhurst. Again, that is one of the reforms for which on the face of it there is a good deal to be said. The question is asked, "Why have two institutions when you might have one? You can always economise by combination." I undertook on that occasion to have the matter inquired into before I spoke on the Army Estimates again. My Noble Friend the Secretary of State was good enough to set up a committee, of which I was chairman, to inquire primarily into the financial aspect of the question, as to how much money could be saved and as to whether it was feasible. We sat for some time, and we went very carefully into the matter. We visited both institutions and called for reports from both Commandants and asked them to give evidence, before us.
Let me say here how deeply the Army Council deplore the sudden and premature death of General Wagstaff, who was; then at the head of the Royal Military
Academy. We finally reported to the Army Council that the scheme was, in the opinion of those best qualified to know, perfectly feasible, and that a very large saving of money would result. The Army Council, having considered the report, decided finally to leave matters as they were. I will not disguise from the House that there is plenty of room for two opinions on this question. There is division of opinion between military authorities as well as between civilians. But I am glad to say that personally I entirely concur in the decision arrived at by the Army Council, and I am very glad to be able to recommend it to this House.
The military argument in favour of the amalgamation was that it is better to produce all your officers of one type, to get them together early, to let them make friends early, not to split them up into separate cliques, to let them know one another, let them start with the same training and the same traditions behind them. That seems to me rather more a military argument from the drill sergeant's point of view than from the civilian point of view. By the drill sergeant I mean the military class which does always exist, based largely upon uniform, wishing to see uniformity in everything, everybody doing things at the same time and in the same way. I think, on the other hand, that it is a good thing to have officers of as many different types as possible, of as many different traditions, brought up under as many different systems. Not only does that inspire a friendly and useful spirit of emulation, but variety in itself is a good thing.
When I look into the records of recent years I find rather striking confirmation of my opinion. Take six of the most distinguished field-marshals who have died in the present century. You will find a very great difference in the education which they had before they went into the Army. Take, first, Lord Roberts and Lord Kitchener. One went to Sandhurst and the other to Woolwich. Lord Haig took a degree at Oxford before he went for a short period to Sandhurst. Sir Henry Wilson failed to get into either Sandhurst or Woolwich, but passed into the Army through the Militia. Lord French started as a cadet in the "Britannia" and went straight from that training to his regiment. Sir
William Robertson rose from the ranks. Those facts are rather interesting as showing that field-marshals do not always come from the same origin.
A stronger argument for the decision of the Army Council is this, in my opinion: The type of education at Woolwich is admittedly higher than that at Sandhurst. It is no reflection on Sandhurst to say so, because the branches of the Service for which Woolwich prepares cadets, demands greater technical knowledge than is required in the cavalry and infantry. The proportion of instructors to cadets is larger at Woolwich than at Sandhurst, and the classes therefore are smaller. If you amalgamated the two and, as was proposed, slightly increased the ratio of instructors to cadets at Sandhurst, even though it might be possible slightly to raise the level at Sandhurst, it is really unarguable that you would be obliged slightly to reduce the level of education of the Woolwich cadets. In these days, in military affairs nothing can be of greater importance than the education of officers. Slightly to lower the level of education of the officers of Artillery and Engineers—that idea alone would seem to be a conclusive argument against the amalgamation.
There is one other argument, for which I do not apologise. After all, the British Army is built up on tradition, which not even Governments can create. It takes years, generations and centuries. For 200 years the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich has been in being. If anybody has any doubt about the strength of the tradition which hangs about that place they have only to walk into it and they will feel it immediately. They have only to look at the names on the wall, where they will see the names of the same family, generation after generation, who have been to the Academy, and an old official will probably show the book in which the misdeeds of General Gordon as a cadet are recorded. All over the world, British officers look back to Woolwich with the affection with which a man looks back to his home or his school. No doubt a strong case can be made out on the grounds of economy for amalgamating Eton College and Harrow School—[An HON. MEMBER: "Withdraw."]—but, however strong that case might be, there would be Old Etonians and Old Harrovians who would be blind to all the advantages and who, owing
to narrow prejudices perhaps, would prefer to keep to themselves. The same is true of Woolwich. I am a Conservative, but there is, I think, one conservative principle which many who are not Conservatives will support, and that is that if there is one thing worth preserving and conserving, it is an ancient, honourable and useful tradition. Places like Woolwich are the shrines of such traditions and I hope that I may never be instrumental in destroying such a tradition or such a shrine.
I come to the defence of these Islands, the third of the purposes for which the British Army exists. The House is aware that the coast defence of Great Britain has been handed over to the Territorial Army. The Territorial Army suffered severely from the decision in 1931 to go without camps for one year. It saved the country nearly £1,000,000. It was realised that it would affect badly recruiting for the Territorial Army, but perhaps it was hardly realised how great a blow it would strike to the sense which the Territorial Army have as to their importance to the country. That has always been the danger. Just as the regular soldier suffers from the traditions of his ancestors, so does the Territorial suffer from his traditions. There was always associated with the Volunteers a certain spirit of comradeship, and in some people's minds there still remains the idea that the Territorial Army, upon whom a great deal of ridicule was heaped when they came into existence, at their best are only a lot of jolly fellows playing at soldiers during the summer months.
I want to get rid of that impression once and for all, and to say to the House that the Territorial Army is just as essential a part of our Defence Forces as the Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, or the Regular Army. By that I mean that we cannot get on without them. If there is no Territorial Army we shall have to review entirely the whole position of our voluntary defence scheme. If that were realised, perhaps more would be done for recruiting all over the country. I appeal to hon. Members to use their influence in their constituencies, and above all with employers of labour, who can do very much to encourage people in setting an example in joining the force. I would press upon hon. Members that the
Territorial Army, which is based on patriotism, is the cheapest army in the world, that the country relies upon it, and that if it fails we shall have to resort to some other system which would be less satisfactory and certainly more expensive.
There is one particular branch of the Territorial Army to which I want to refer, and which I think suffers from people not knowing enough about it. I refer to the air defence formations. These formations work in conjunction with the Air Force, and they are primarily designed for the protection of London. There are some people who profess to be both pacifists and patriots, who say they will never join anything which might lead them to take part in an offensive war, but they love their country just as much as their fellow citizens. Here is a unique opportunity for them to prove their sincerity. They are only asked to defend their country. They will never be asked to go overseas or to interfere with anybody else. If people come and attack London, drop bombs on their homes, on their own families, their wives and children, on their own town, they are asked to do their best to destroy that invader. It is interesting work which demands a considerable amount of skill, knowledge and education. The batteries are there, but the numbers of men are short at the present time, and perhaps if more were known about these air defence formations we should get the number of recruits we need.
I have also an announcement to make with regard to the creation of a new branch of the Territorial Army, to be called the Royal Defence Corps. It will be recruited from men who are no longer fit for active service owing to age or some infirmity but who can be used in an emergency to protect vulnerable points in this country from any attack by persons of ill will or foreign agents inside this country. They will be enrolled under the Territorial Association and will not be called upon except in case of an emergency; but they will be under an honourable undertaking to come up when called upon and will receive a bounty of £5, and after that the normal rates of pay. They will relieve active bodies of people who are fit for active service from these duties in case of emergency, fill a gap which has hitherto
existed in our defence forces and provide an opportunity for people who are anxious, when an emergency occurs, to help their country but who often complain that their country has no use for them. It will provide them with a valuable service which they can perform in protecting vulnerable points, bridges and railways, and thus set free younger men for more active work.

Brigadier-General Sir HENRY CROFT: Will they be men who have passed out of the Territorial Army?

Mr. COOPER: The idea is that they shall be ex-Territorials and ex-Regular soldiers.
Having dealt with those who are too old for active service, let me say a word about those who are too young, the members of the Officers Training Corps. There, again, I think there is a lack of conviction in the public mind as to the importance which the Army Council attaches to the Officers Training Corps. We are not likely to suffer from a greater lack in a time of emergency than that of men with some military training who are fit to command. In the early days of the Great War an enormous amount of valuable material which should have been trained for work as officers perished too soon, without having had an opportunity of performing that valuable service. The Officers Training Corps provides that training. It has been subjected to a great deal of criticism lately.
A book appeared this summer which had a large circulation. It singled out in particular as one object of its attack the Officers Training Corps attached to our public schools. The argument put forward with great force and vigour was that these Officers Training Corps induced and created a spirit of militarism in the worst sense among the youth of the country, and, secondly, that it did not really train them for modern war. It said that if you want to train boys for modern war you should teach them the quickest and best way of killing other boys; otherwise, it was a waste of time. They should be trained in gas warfare, in anti-aircraft warfare, instead of drilling and being taught musketry on comparatively old-fashioned methods. That book had a large circulation and I think considerable influence. I am told that
schoolmasters even are to-day unquiet in their minds as to the propriety of retaining an Officers Training Corps. The error of that book was based on a fundamental misconception of the purposes of education. After all, the object of education is to prepare the minds and bodies of young people for the life that lies before them, for the responsibilities and duties which will come their way.
When, therefore, a schoolmaster has to deal with this difficult problem, what is he to say to the young men and women he is training? Ought he to say "war is so horrible that you had better not think about it at all, and hope it will not happen?" That would be no preparation at all. Ought he to say, "war is so horrible that you must take care never to have anything to do with it; you must teach pacifism and by refusing to fight yourself adopt the best method of preventing war?" That, to say the least of it, is an extremist doctrine held by few people; and the truth of which is at least open to considerable doubt. Ought he not rather to say, "war is the greatest calamity which can befall a nation. It happened in your father's days, and it may happen in yours. Pray God it will not. Do everything in your power to prevent it. But is is the opinion of most people that a man ought to be able to defend those things which he holds most dear, most precious, most sacred, the people he loves, his home and the ideals in which he believes. Here in this school we offer you some military training, a training which, in the opinion of those best qualified to know, will render you in time to come more valuable, more fit, more apt to render service should an emergency arise, and to render the kind of service which you will no doubt wish to render to the cause in which you believe." That seems to me to be the point of view that a schoolmaster should take. To say that squad drill, musketry and field exercises make a man militarist is just like saying that football leads to murder and the reading of Horace to dipsomania.
With regard to the other object, that you should render them more fit for modern warfare by instructing them in gas attacks, and in anti-aircraft attacks, that is not the object of education. You do not teach boys in any public school the technicalities of the profession into which they are going. They have to earn their living. Mathematics no doubt may
be of some use in the city, though I never found that men in the city knew more mathematics than anybody else, but I never heard of a school in which there were lectures on the Weekly Stock Markets, the ups and downs of shares, or the reliability of the principal financial houses. Yet these are things boys will have to know about if they go into the city, as they will have to know about poison gas if they go to war. That sort of specious argument carries considerable weight, especially if it is well written, but there is nothing in it. I wish to assure the House that the Army Council does attach tremendous value to the Officers Training Corps and hopes to see it going on as it is going on, rendering the service it is rendering.
I now come to the last of the purposes for which the Army exists, and that is to give help if need arises in an emergency, to fight outside the shores of this country. I would like to emphasise that, in discussing the field force, I am not discussing a different Army. It is the same old Army about which we have been talking all the while, an Army of Regulars and Territorials, which has to provide the reinforcements of the Army and protect our naval ports, and our shores. It is the same Army all the time. To return to the motoring simile: Your expert motorist who takes in magazines about motors and really knows what makes them go, when he comes to look at your one car does so with a smile of pity and contempt, and will always tell you the things that are wrong, the modern gadgets it ought to have, the hundred and one improvements it must undergo before it is entered in a race. In the same way your military experts will tell you to exchange your last horse for a motor bicycle and push your last infantryman into a tank. He has forgotten that there are 66 battalions of infantry defending British interests all over the world, and this force has to provide reinforcements for them. The War Office does not indulge in propaganda, publicity or advertisement. I sometimes think it is a pity it does not, because people in this country have no idea of the work the Army is performing all the time overseas. Hardly a month goes by in which British infantry are not called upon to perform duties of restoring confidence and providing protection and maintaining
order—duties which they always perform with a minimum of fuss, ostentation or advertisement, and nearly always successfully.
Peace hath her victories
No less renown'd than war 
is a quotation with which we are all familiar, but many people do not realise that the victories of peace also are often won by soldiers, and it is not so much in their power to destroy and kill as in their power to make friends that the British troops carry out their work to-day. There is no more valuable weapon than the good nature of the ordinary British soldier. Bad news gets bigger headlines than good news. Nobody hears of battles that are not fought, although they require as much good will and courage as those that are. It was only the summer before last that an example of this kind took place. In Iraq a situation arose which the High Commissioner considered extremely dangerous, and he asked for a battalion of infantry. They were conveyed by the Royal Air Force from Egypt in the minimum of time, at the minimum of expense. There was no fighting, no casualties; there was not even a supplementary estimate, and the profound knowledge which the High Commissioner had of the psychology of the people among whom he was living, was proved by the result that the situation resolved itself immediately into peace and quiet. One battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment had done the trick.
We could not convey a tank or an armoured car in those aeroplanes to Iraq, in that way, and if we could, they were not the weapons that were needed. When you have an enemy before you on the battlefield and a definite military objective to capture, machine guns and tanks have their place, but when you have to deal, as we so often have to deal, with a disaffected population and widespread hostilities, perhaps unorganised, these are not the weapons. You need subtler and more delicate weapons which only infantry can provide. It has been said lately by a very distinguished officer in the Press, that the greater must contain the less. It is always dangerous when soldiers dabble in Euclid. An army that can fight against the most highly armed civilised Power in the world, it is argued, must be the best to fight a less civilised and organised Power. But you cannot judge
human nature in terms of geometry. Human nature is not all made up of squares and triangles, though some of our modern painters would have you believe so. It does not follow that because a cat-o'-nine-tails is the best instrument for correcting a hardened criminal, it is also the best for a little child. Because an elephant is the heaviest animal in the world it does not follow that it is the best instrument for cracking walnuts.
It is true that the tank was in the last War a great invention which had a profound influence, and far be it from me to underrate in any way the formidable character of that weapon perhaps to-day the most formidable in the world. The Army Council have shown their appreciation of it this year by establishing a tank brigade of four battalions, and we are continuing to study any improvements in that weapon. The tank to-day is as much more formidable than the tank of 1918 as the modern rifle is more formidable than the first rifles, but you cannot commit yourself irrevocably to any one invention. Colonel Henderson, one of the greatest military historians, has said that it takes years for military criticism to recover its equilibrium after any great invention. That to some extent is true. People think that it must be the only thing. As nobody can say when the next war will be fought, so nobody can say how invention is going to proceed. At the present time there is every indication that the invention of armour-piercing bullets is going on much more rapidly than the invention of bullet-resisting armour. I am not in a position to give any information, but it is at least possible that in a few years' time the most heavily armoured car or tank will be as vulnerable to the fire of the future as an old wooden caravan would be to the firing of to-day. On Salisbury Plain or even on the fields of Flanders the tank is no doubt the most powerful weapon you can possibly use, but it is not necessarily the most powerful in the North-West Frontier, or in the swamps and ditches that surround the suburbs of Shanghai. The Japanese discovered that to their cost in recent military operations when their armoured guns and tanks collapsed and proved a great hindrance to their operations.
The hundred years that led up to the Great War, we are apt to think of as
the time of comparative peace, and yet in that period the British Army fought in many lands and in many different conditions. They fought in the heat of summer on the plains of Egypt, and in the depth of winter in the Crimea. They fought in the roadless hills of Afghanistan and in the open veldt of South Africa, in the dense forests of Ashanti, and the waterless deserts of the Sudan. Tanks would not have done; and, just as we cannot say when the next war will be, so we cannot say under what conditions it will be fought. We have to be ready for all conditions and provide an army that will do its best in any circumstances. To revolutionise our whole policy in view of the latest inventions, would be as unwise as it would be to revolutionise our political system because some other system has been going well for a few years in some foreign land. Hon. Members who were impatient last year will doubtless be more impatient this year, because we have not decided on the ideal anti-tank gun. We cannot commit ourselves until we are sure we have the best. We must go on experimenting. We have gone far and our experiments are approaching finality, so that we hope soon to make a definite decision.
I do not think I am called upon to explain at any length the increase of expenditure in these Estimates. It was admirably dealt with in the Secretary of State's Memorandum where the fact that the Estimates are a little larger is shown not to be accountable to any expansion of our armed forces. Hon. Members opposite cannot think that the inhabitants of foreign countries will imagine that these Estimates show any war-like spirit. When they remember that when they were in office four years ago and the international outlook was at least not more disquieting than it is to-day, they produced Estimates for a considerably larger sum than we are producing, I think their minds may be at rest on that particular issue. Great and terrible are the inventions of modern science, and awful are the instruments of modern destruction that modern science produces, but the ultimate test of an Army in the future will be, as it has been in the past, the man behind the gun and the man in the machine. I have endeavoured to draw some picture of what the British Army is there to perform, and I should like to conclude by saying that if it were
not for the patriotism and devotion which inspires all ranks, both of the Regular and the Territorial Armies it would be impossible for so small a force to fulfil duties of such vast magnitude.

4.46 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: The hon. Gentleman has introduced these Estimates in that brilliant style which he has taught us to expect from him. He has not, however, spent so much time in illuminating the Estimates themselves, as in intimating to those who are attacking the Army that the Army is not going to take those attacks lying down and also to some extent in anticipating attacks upon the Army. The Navy has been called "the silent service." I have sometimes thought in recent years that the term could with more justification be applied to the Army in view of the attacks which have been made upon it. While the hon. Gentleman used the pacifists as a stalking-horse and particularly mentioned my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition—to whom he made a kindly reference—his speech was a straight tip to the Air Force and the Navy that the Army is going to have something to say when the Debate on general defence takes place. That does not lead us very far in considering the Estimates as a whole. Let me say at once that I endorse what the hon. Gentleman said about the general conduct and character of the soldier of to-day. What he has said about the intellectual advantages of the soldier of to-day as compared with the soldier of the past is no more than the truth. One of the things which does not seem to be realised outside the Army is that the soldier of to-day is getting an education far superior to that of the average adolescent in civil life apart from those who go to the secondary schools and the universities. Whether the civilians like it or not, it is the case that in matters of adolescent education the soldier has turned the tables on the civilian since the War.
The hon. Gentleman asks us to-day to give our assent to an Estimate of over £39,000,000. One would scarcely think from his remarks that he was really asking the House to assent to an increase of £1,600,000. That, at a time like the present, is bad enough but this is the second year in which we have had an increase, and these two increases
together represent an increase of over £3,000,000 for the Army since 1932. The increase asked for to-day by the hon. Gentleman, added to the increases in the naval and air Estimates for this year, makes up a total increase of £4,750,000 in respect of the defence forces for this year. If we take the two years since 1932 there has been an increase on the ordinary Estimates in that time, for all the forces, of over £9,000,000. Let the House understand what that means because it is very relevant to the point which the hon. Gentleman made as to the difficulty of getting sufficient recruits for the Army. The hon. Gentleman did not tell the House, because it is stated in the Memorandum, that over 33 per cent. of men were rejected this year. The percentage of rejects is going up; the figure now amounts to over 300 per thousand, and the Memorandum significantly points out that that was in addition to over 10,000 men who were rejected, on sight, and without reference to the medical officers at all. They merely showed themselves and were refused. I submit that such a state of things prevails because we are taking money for the defence services which ought to go to feeding and clothing the people, and keeping men in decent health so that they will be fit, if and when they do wish voluntarily to offer themselves for military service.
When the cuts were made in the Services and on all the people outside, including the unemployed, we were told in the Command Paper of 1931 that the total reduction, including reduction of pay and pensions that would be made in the Estimates for the defence services in 1932 was £8,600,0000. That was the defence forces' contribution to solving the difficulties of that time. I think the amount was made up of £3,600,000 cut in pay and pensions and £5,000,000 cut in other expenditure on the defence forces. The Army, Navy and Air Force have had that £5,000,000 returned twice over, but not a penny has been restored either to the unemployed men outside or to those who serve in the various forces. We have restored the cuts made in expenditure on guns and tanks but there has been no restoration of cuts for those who need it most. We appeased the mechanical god of war and allowed our own people to suffer.
The fundamental matter for the War Office as well as the other service departments to consider is the relation of this question to the question of recruiting. They ought not merely to complain about not getting the necessary recruits. They ought to make representations to the officers of the civilian forces of this country—that is the Government—and urge them to pay just as much attention to men and women in civil life who need attention, as military and naval officers pay to their men, in reference particularly to food and clothing. I repeat what I have said on a previous occasion. I know at first hand something of the attention which an officer gives to his men. I have known it as a ranker. I have known it when I occupied the exalted position which the hon. Gentleman opposite occupies to-day. I have seen it from various angles. I know that officers insist that their men should be well-fed and well clothed. Indeed the same spirit applies even to the animals in the service of the War Office. It applies even to the mules—animals for which I have a great respect.
I am unstinted in my admiration of the care which officers give to their men to see that they are properly fed, clothed and housed. But I think if service Members of this House clearly understood the state of affairs existing among great masses of men in this country to-day, if they realised how many of our people lacked the elementary needs of life, if they realised the deterioration which is going on in those standards which are essential to reasonable health and fitness, they would join with us in criticising the policy of restoring cuts in expenditure on mere mechanical needs before such a restoration is made to the people who need it most in various parts of our national life. So I say that the additional £1,500,000 extra for which we are being asked to-day must be considered in the light of the circumstances in which the nation finds itself. It would be true to say that in case of trouble to-day, or at any time, the whole nation is a potential army. If we allow the deterioration to go on which is marked and admitted by the War Office itself, we can pile up arms and fortify ourselves as much as we like, but like other Empires we shall go the way of dust. We shall have something to say
about that aspect of the question before this Debate closes.
I wish to ask whether the Government are sure that we are getting full value for the money that we are spending. The hon. Gentleman in his opposition to proposals for the amalgamation of certain services was rather sarcastic at the expense of certain people who have made such proposals. We are being asked to spend nearly £40,000,000 on the Army and on the three Services together we are spending £114,000,000. Are we sure that we are geting value for that expenditure 2 That is a matter which might well be discussed when we are discussing Imperial defence generally. Members have asked for a Debate upon that subject, and I am sure they are going to have a Debate, but it will be after the Estimates have been passed. We had such a Debate last year—after the Estimates had been passed. We always get that Debate when least can, be effected. This matter of pooling resources and amalgamating for the purchase of food, clothes, stores, and a whole lot of such things, must come down some day to a really fundamental discussion, and I do not think we shall get it when we have this general Debate. It is true that the Imperial Defence Committee has been responsible already for making certain services co-operate in the three Forces, but I am not familiar with the extent to which that operates. It is also true that the Public Accounts Committee investigates the accounts and makes certain suggestions, but it discusses these matters, I believe, from 12 to 18 months after the money has been spent, and I think the time is not far distant when, from the point of view of supplies alone, there will have to be a more meticulous investigation of these matters, in order to see that we are getting full value for our money.
I should like to ask the hon. Gentleman about the question of works and buildings. I see the gross estimate for Catterick has disappeared from the Estimates. We used to be told regularly that over £1,500,000 was required, but it seems that the Catterick business has been split up, so that we still have very large Estimates for work to be done in that particular part of the country. There is £106,000 to be spent up to 31st March of this year, then there is £62,800 for 1934, and then we are told there is £139,600 for future years. This has been going on
almost since the War. I think the original Estimate was for about £1,500,000, but that, as far as I can see, has been used up, and now we seem to be setting out on another almost indefinite range of expenditure which is so big that it is almost impossible to grasp. I should like the hon. Gentleman to tell us what their plans are with regard to Catterick. This year we are spending on works and buildings alone £3,303,000, an increase of £663,000, or, on the two years, of £882,000. I am aware that a good deal of that is due to the fact that some of the old hutting of the South African War and some that was put up temporarily during the War has proved unstable, but some of these sums are, I must say, interminable. We are given bare facts and figures in this great book of Estimates, but we are given very little explanation, and it seems to me that it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that in the case of works and buildings there should be joint action between the three Forces.
Then there is Vote 7, the clothing Vote. Last year there was no increase in this Vote, but this year there is an increase of £107,000 on a Vote of £1,025,000. That is a very large increase in the cost of clothing, and it is rather disturbing, in view of the fact that it cannot be said that there has been any increase in wages so far as clothing is concerned. The old Pimlico factory has gone. The hon. Gentleman, if he had had it in his power, might have retained it, but in so far as the capacity to make our own clothing on a large scale has gone, we not only lose what I think is a valuable force, but we also lose a sort of testing standard for the people outside. I think we should be given an explanation of this very large increase in the cost of clothing for this year. Is it the result of exploitation? Has the War Office placed itself in a position, by abandoning the Pimlico factory, whereby not only can it not produce its own clothing on a large scale for the Army, but it has also abandoned the means of keeping those who make tenders for the supply of clothing from private sources somewhat in hand?
I used to boast that the War Office were in a position to produce clothes and many other things much more cheaply than they were produced outside. There was a time when the War Office could compete in the most remarkable way with outside forces. We used to get, in the
Army Estimates after the War, an idea of what was the cost of such a thing as a loaf of bread, through the operation of what was known as the costing system. That was abandoned, and it seemed to me, when it was abandoned, that we lost a means of gauging our expenditure at first hand and of knowing whether we were getting value for our money. I remember very well calling attention, I think it was in about 1921 or 1922, to the fact that when the loaf outside was selling for about 11d., the War Office was producing and supplying it to its own men at 4½d.—the same weight and the same quality—and there were many other striking instances. This increase in the cost of clothing is all the more significant when the Government's own factory at Pimlico has gone, and the Government are now largely, though not wholly, in the hands of private traders for the supply of clothing for the Army.
There is the perennial question of how much longer we have to continue with vast numbers of horses in the possession of the Army, even in increasing numbers, when the Army is committed almost wholly to the policy of mechanisation. It is very difficult to say, in these circumstances, what is the value of mechanisation. The hon. Gentleman has given an illustration of how ineffective tanks and tractors have proved to be in one part of the world. I do not know whether he had in mind the ineffectiveness of tanks at one stage late in the War, but if the Army is going to decide upon continued mechanisation—these Estimates give many instances of increased expenditure for that purpose, and there is nearly as much for the building of shelters for tanks and all that kind of thing as there is of building for human beings—then we really must some time have an answer to this question of the increase in the supplies of Army remounts. There is an increase of £14,000 for animals—chargers, mules and what not—this year, and that is in addition to the 16,000 horses and mules on the establishment already. Further, it is exclusive of India, where there might be said to be much more reason for the use of the horse or the mule. In the face of the increased expenditure of the last year or two on the deliberate mechanisation of the Army, what is the explanation of keeping 16,000 horses and even more this year? That is a matter, it seems to me, upon which
the War Office will be open to very real attack unless an answer is forthcoming.
The real point that the House has to consider to-day is that which the Financial Secretary made almost the centre of his speech. I started on that point and I finish on it. It is the condition of those people who would like to join the Army and cannot. The country cannot afford to increase its expenditure upon the Army, Navy and Air Force. I am one of those who follow matters of policy very closely so far layman can, and I am also one of those who unfortunately are in daily touch with the great masses of men from whom the Army, the Navy and the Air Force draw their supplies, and upon whom in case of war we must depend for defence as a last resort. In just that supply we are weak. This country cannot afford to restore £9,000,000 in two years to the Services while it takes £56,000,000 from the unemployed and great cuts from the very men in these Services.
That is the realism of the position which these Estimates can be said to represent. Other nations and other empires have kept out the forces that were seeking to get over their frontiers. Sometimes I walk along that old wall in the North of England where soldiers once kept guard in order to keep out the enemies who were attacking the Roman Empire. We have vivid descriptions of how forces in various parts of the world strove to get through and how Rome kept them back. There is one thing, however, which she did not keep back. She did not keep back hunger, unemployment and want and the deterioration of her people. She could keep enemies outside, but she could not resist those forces of deterioration inside which ultimately brought her down. If there were realism in this House in reference to defence and general policy, we would, instead of increasing the Army Estimates, be restoring what has been taken from those who so badly need it. That is why to-night we shall go into the Lobby against this Vote; we think that in reference neither to this defence force nor to the others can this country afford the money until such time as she meets the needs of her people.

5.20 p.m.

Sir FRANCIS ACLAND: May I start by expressing the special pleasure that
some parts of the Minister's speech gave me? I was glad to hear his announcement that a new corps, which I think he called the Royal Defence Corps, was going to be formed, which men who had been Regulars or Territorials were to be invited to join for a special limited but defined and useful purpose. This Corps after all is, I think, only a revival of one of Lord Haldane's organisations. It was called by him the Special Reserve and was one of several pieces of work which he did and which Lord Kitchener expressed himself unable to understand and to make use of when he was in charge. I remember the pleasure with which, as an old Volunteer and Territorial, I joined that Special Reserve, and I am now proud of a rather chipped badge that was given to me on joining. That body, of course, disappeared, and now in a way and under a different name it is being revived and will, if called upon, do work which otherwise the more mobile forces would have to do. It is a very good development.
I agreed with the hon. Gentleman as to our Army being an all-purposes army, and it would have very much delighted my old chief, Lord Haldane. I was brought up in his tradition, what you may call a modified and improved Card-wellianism. I was glad to hear it so ably defended to-day, and to know that there was no going away from that system even though it does not, as the hon. Gentleman of course admitted, provide separate armies for all separate purposes which our Army has to carry out, and therefore is not and cannot be absolutely perfect for all possible duties for which our Army is called upon. I was delighted at the Minister's able praise of the ordinary infantryman, the ordinary footslogger. I believe that the ordinary rank and file of the British Infantry, with their good nature and their strong shoulders always to the front in whatever part of the world they may be called upon, and with their side-arms kept very carefully in reserve in the hope that even that minor weapon will not be needed, is one of the finest peace agencies in the world. I am glad that the Minister made an indirect, but none the less effective, corrective of the idea, which one reads of here and there, which encourages overdue specialisation and mechanisation to take place in this glorious
force with its wonderful tradition and reputation.
I suppose that I was asked to say something on this occasion on behalf of my party partly because my name happens to begin with A, and I was the first person to come to mind, but also because I was not present at the party meeting where the Estimates were discussed, and therefore could not make any excuses. It is the fact, however, that I had the honour of occupying the position which the Financial Secretary to the War Office adorns no less than a quarter of a century ago. As I listened to him I was very glad, looking back on those days, to realise that it did not fall to me then, but to Mr. Haldane, to make the statement introducing the Estimates, because I am sure that I could not possibly have done it as ably and attractively as he did.
I would like to refer to the Memorandum accompanying the Estimates. That takes a common form of many memoranda that must have been presented this year to many other assemblies besides this House up and down the country. I was amused as I read the sentences of the Memorandum of the Secretary of State to see how almost every sentence echoed the words with which a few weeks before—to compare these great things with a very small matter—I had introduced and justified the estimates of the education authority of Devon. It is common form nowadays to say that heavy cuts have to be made on account of the financial crisis, that stocks are depleted and have now to be renewed, that repairs are now overdue, that rebuilding must be attended to, and that things unfortunately are rising in price, and that all these things account for the higher figure which has to be presented. It is also almost common form to have to continue to say that the figure is not yet back again to its previous level before the cuts took place in 1931, and to add, as the Memorandum does, and as I did to my county council, a few guarded phrases, as little alarming as possible, which suggests that the services will probably come above the figure of 1931 in a year or two's time.
One notices also that useful phrase about factors beyond one's own control: in my case the Burnham scale and the increase in the attendance of children in
schools, and in the case of the War Office the better recruiting and the extra provision that has to be made to meet the risks of unemployment. The parallel is curiously exact in that both the Secretary of State in the Memorandum and I in talking about the education estimates in my county spoke about the necessity of having to replace the wooden army huts which are no longer tolerable and must be replaced by permanent buildings.
But when I read that the cuts that took place in 1931 can no longer be maintained and that the expenditure is gradually coming back to the old figure, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) that it is not tolerable to envisage a return to the old figure which is presented to us in these Estimates if there is to be no return of the other cuts. If we are told that this expenditure is going to creep up but that nothing is to be done for other people, there will be a great cause for criticism, whereas if there is a restoration all round it will be only doing what may naturally be expected on account of the improved financial position of the country. It seems to me that although what I have mentioned in the Secretary of State's Memorandum may be all right when it was expressed by me in a small matter of county estimates, it is a little meagre when it is applied to the Army. I would have liked to have had something more, something like we had this afternoon from the Financial Secretary, but even a little more than that, as to what the Army is for, particularly on that side to which he referred at the end, namely, its power of mobilising into a foreign service force.
In the Memorandum which Lord Haldane presented to the House 25 years ago he was quite definite about that. He said that he was so organising the Regular Army as to be able to mobilise one cavalry division and six other divisions and to keep their numbers up for six months, and that he was organising the Territorials in 14 divisions, and that that was the force aimed at for overseas services in the one case and for home defence in the other. No one has to grope a little in the Memorandum of the Secretary of State, and even in the admirable speech we have heard, to find any definite statement as to what the Army is for from the point of view of its possible foreign service. Comparing the position
at the two dates, I find that our establishments abroad now total 31,000, compared with 45,000 25 years ago, and in India 57,000, compared with 76,000. One wonders whether we need a home establishment—as certainly we should not under the Cardwell system—of 110,000 to maintain a foreign establishment of 88,000. If it is not wanted for the purpose of maintaining the Indian and other overseas garrisons what exactly is it needed for? I am not saying that we do not want it, but that we should have had rather a better picture of the Army if we had been told what force on mobilisation it is estimated that this country can now produce, compared with Lord Haldane's cavalry division and six other divisions.
It is rather interesting to compare the main figures of strength and of expenditure in those days and now. Lord Haldane had an establishment 33,000 larger—183,000 then, against our 150,000 now—and the effective Votes came to £23,500,000, as against £31,500,000 now. There was a regular establishment 33,000 larger and costing £8,000,000 less. In the case of the non-effective Votes the contrast is even more interesting, because the total was, with £4,250,000 less on the Pension Votes in those days, £27,500,000, against £39,500,000 now. That is an extra expenditure of £12,000,000, although the regular establishments are 33,000 down. The Territorial strength then was 200,000 and now is only 133,000. There has been an obvious decline in numbers and an obvious rise in expenditure. If one had to explain this increase of expense one would centre on three things, namely, the increase of mechanisation and specialisation since the War, the increases in pay, and the very considerable increases on the non-effective Votes. It seems a rather remarkable thing that there has been more than £4,000,000 a year increase on the non-effective Votes, seeing that all War pensions are carried on the Vote for the Ministry of Pensions and do not come into the ordinary Army pension lists at all.
As to mechanisation, it is interesting to note how far it has gone, not only as regards turning cavalry into artillery and giving the artillery tractors instead of their horses, but also to notice how very much that standard unit, as I regard it,
the battalion of infantry, has tended to become a mechanised unit. I remember in the year 1908, at about this time, when the Estimates, for which I was partly responsible, were under consideration, reading a paper circulated to members of the Army Council on the manoeuvres in Germany—it had been prepared by our Military Attaché or some person who was an authorised observer and reporter—and noticing what great use the Germans seemed to make of machine guns. I wrote a note to the Master-General of Ordnance, with whom I happened to have some pretty stiff disagreements on financial matters, saying that if he and the military members of the Council would like to have more machine guns for the Army that at any rate the Finance Department of the War Office would make no objection. I got, of course, the answer to which they adhered for years after that—even till a fairly late period in the War—that two machine guns per battalion were enough.
How things have changed now. Every infantry battalion is to have four antitank guns, two antiaircraft guns, each of the three rifle companies is to have eight Lewis guns, and the machine gun company is divided into three platoons, each with four machine guns; so that each unit of infantry has a total of 42 pieces of ordnance of different sizes, in addition, of course, to rifles, If that is done in the least specialised arm, what are they now doing as regards specialisation and mechanisation in the more specialised arms? No wonder that one finds in these Estimates that the Vote for Armament and Engineers Stores, which 25 years ago was £1,600,000, is today more than £3,000,000.
Let me make a comparison in the matter of pay, taking the same unit, the infantry battalion. The establishment of an infantry battalion is only 10 less than it used to be, being 791 against 801, but the annual pay of that establishment, which used to be £20,000 a year, is now £53,000 a year. I have worked out the increases for some typical ranks. A married lieutenant-colonel now gets exactly 90 per cent. more than he did then, receiving £1,153 a year in pay and allowances, compared with £607. A second-lieutenant, unmarried—one must assume that normally he is unmarried, because he cannot afford to be otherwise—who
used to get £145 a year in pay and allowances now gets £262, exactly 80 per cent. more. But the biggest rise is found when we come to the private soldier. I am glad of it, and I think he deserves it, but it is worth mentioning how very much his position has improved. In the old days he used to get the proverbial shilling. Now he gets 2s. a day, with an extra 6d. after three years, an extra 3d. as soon as he has passed a low educational proficiency standard, and another extra 3d. for military proficiency, which he can gain within a fairly limited time of enlistment. We may take his pay as an average of 2s. 6d. a day, even during the quite early years of his training, rising to 3s. if he becomes an efficient soldier later. His pay has gone up 150 per cent.
An interesting point to notice, and I am bound to say that I cannot understand why it should be so, is that recruiting was brisk in those old days, although the infantryman used to get only 1s. a day. Unemployment at that time, 1908, was at the lowest point ever known since the figures were collected, and yet now, when unemployment is so bad and the position of the soldier is so very much improved, recruiting seems to be more difficult. To-day the infantry private gets £46 a year and everything found, with other allowances for the upkeep of his clothes. That does not seem to be at all bad for a man in these difficult times, and I would like to join with the Financial Secretary in getting that made known as showing how wonderfully good is the provision which the Army makes for those who join.
A few other rather interesting points emerge, which I hurry over, when one compares expenditure now and 25 years ago. The first is that the medical services, which then used to cost just under £440,000, now cost £910,000. The doctors have far fewer men to look after, but the Medical Corps, which used to be only 1,100 strong, is now 3,600. I remember that in my day I always used to feel that the Adjutant-General could never stand up against the claims of the doctors for a larger personnel and higher pay and allowances, and increases have gone on steadily since then. I expect we get value for that extra medical attention; certainly the Army does make men who join healthy and keep them healthy, and sends them back to civil life about the finest set of men the nation turns out
from any of its services. That is done partly on the physical side, no doubt, by the care of the medical service; and partly done, as the hon. Member who preceded me showed, on the mental side also. The Vote for educational establishments used to be £146,000 in my day, and now it is nearly six times as much, £844,000. The cost of Woolwich is up by two-thirds and that of Sandhurst is quite double, and the Staff College costs six times as much.
Then there is a new item of expenditure, altogether unknown in those days, namely, schools for fighting arms, on which we now spend £366,000, an increase of £71,000 between last year and this, which, of course, is an illustration of the development of mechanisation and specialisation. Included in this Vote for education is one thing to which I wish to refer with special pleasure, and which I do not in any sort of way grudge, namely, the maintenance of a unit of organisation called the Vocational Training Centre, at Chisledon. I believe it does perfectly admirable work. By the courtesy of the War Office, some of us who are interested in these ideas of land settlement and are trying to develop them and make them a success, and who are also interested in training men to make a better use of the land, were allowed to visit Chisledon the other day. Persons connected with the Society of Friends, and others with whom I have had the pleasure of working, were extremely impressed by the wonderful spirit of efficiency and the effectiveness of the training which these men got. I am only sorry that the organisation trains no more than 1,400 men per year. Those men must be very carefully selected, and many people who could get a great deal of advantage from that training must have been left behind. It would be a very fine thing, and one to which I do not think the House would grudge the extra expense, if an organisation of that kind could train 4,000 or 5,000 men, rather than 1,400 which pass through it now.
I have only two more points, but I am afraid that they are both rather critical. Looking through the Estimates, I came across a rearrangement of the Votes which rather puzzled me. It was a reversion to the 1904 arrangement. We used to have Quartering and Movements, and Transport and Remounts, all in one
Vote—Vote 6; and Supplies and Clothing both in one Vote—Vote 7. That was a logical division, because all movement was together and all supplies were together, other than warlike stores. That is now altered. We now have Quartering and Movements in one Vote, which is a logical thing, but we have Supplies, Transport and Remounts in one Vote, which is illogical, because it mixes supplies with movement. We have a separate Vote altogether for clothing, which is again supplies. So we have movement divided and supplies divided. That seemed to me to be curious and interesting, and I began to burrow into the Estimates to see if I could understand what had happened.
I found that there had been a change of function between the Departments of two of the military members of the Army Council, the Master-General of the Ordnance and the Quartermaster-General of the Forces. The Master-General has taken over clothing, which accounts for its now being in a separate Vote from other supplies, and in exchange, the Quartermaster-General has taken over fortifications and works, which used to be, and I maintain still should be, in the Department of the Master-General of the Ordnance. There must be some reason for something which sounds so illogical as that. I wonder what it is. I do not know that I am right, and I want to ask: Has the war organisation of supplies been changed—the old, simple organisation on which we ran the Great War? Nobody really complained about the Quartermaster-General's side of the War, whatever complaints they made about the Master-General of the Ordnance's side.
The old, simple principle was that the Master-General of the Ordnance and his Department stayed at home. They were responsible for the production of munitions, which they handed over to the Army Ordnance Corps and which were then distributed by the Quartermaster-General, so far as it was not done by the artillery itself. All distribution in the field, however, as contrasted with the distribution of certain munitions at home, was done by one man, namely, the Quartermaster-General with his staff. All the supplies were the responsibility of his Department, and all such things were the property of his Department.
That was in accordance with a principle which I believe is essential if there is to be an efficient field service. That principle is, that the wagon and the load must belong to the same department—if I may put it so. That no longer happens, so far as I can see. It seems to have been dropped, and I want to know whether that is so. Has there been, since the War, a Master-General of the Ordnance strong enough not only to get clothing into his Department but to establish a field service of the supply of that clothing to the Army alongside the service for which the Quartermaster-General is responsible? Is there to be a Master-General of the Ordnance's Department in the field, responsible for the distribution of some supplies alongside the main distribution for which the Quartermaster-General will still be responsible? If so, I believe that to be entirely wrong. In the field it would be bound to lead to muddle. If there is competition between the Departments of the Quartermaster-General and the Master-General of the Ordnance in the field, it will be necessary to have a new man in the field who will be boss of both of them, and that will make things worse than ever. The simple plan, which used to be that of having the wagon and the load under the same man, is right. I would like an answer to this question at some convenient time, and if I am right about the change that has taken place, I ask that the matter should be re-inquired into.
Just in passing, may I remark that the result of mechanisation is again seen in the fact that the figures for general stores have more than doubled in the 25 years with which I have been dealing? The figure was then £535,000, and now it is £1,181,000. The figure for war-like stores was £1,604,000 then and now it is over £3,000,000. I want to call special attention to a point in Vote 10 which illustrates what I regard as an extremely important principle, and which involves an important matter relating to the proper control by this House over expenditure. It used to be, and always has been, a favourite dodge or method of the Works Department to start new works services with quite small items which have made very little show in the Estimates for the year, and therefore have escaped notice. In the following years when the cost of those works very
largely increased, the answer was always given—I expect I have given it myself—that the House was committed to that work by having admitted it to the Estimates a few years ago, and that it was a continuing service about which it would be unfair to make any criticism.
I looked into Vote 10 to find out whether that process was repeating itself. I did not find as many instances as I expected until I came to one in which we are asked, by a vote of £500, to commit ourselves to a vote of £1,750,000 for rebuilding barracks in Hong Kong and Shanghai. That will be on next year's Estimates as a continuing service which was begun this year. Not a word was said about it in the Secretary of State's Memorandum, or in the speech of the Financial Secretary to the War Office, yet it is starting with what is really only a token vote of £500, to which we commit ourselves if we pass Vote 10. That figure is described as a "provisional" figure. "Provisional" is an ominous word, because it generally means that the expenditure is more likely to go up than to go down. The figure will be £1,750,000. It means that we shall be lucky if we can get these new barracks under £2,000,000.
That ought not to have been put into the Estimates without some attention being called to it, especially as Vote 10 is generally guillotined and not discussed in the Committee at all. Never was a bigger item slipped in so quietly, and I want to ask some questions about it. What inquiry has been made as to whether the Department really ought to build three new infantry barracks at Hong Kong and Shanghai, involving £1,750,000? Who is to do it? Is it to be done by the commanding officer of the Royal Engineers with his local staff and with local labour? If so, have the War Office considered whether it could not be done better—a great work of that kind running up to £2,000,000—by a civilian contractor from this country. Those things are important. I do not think that we ought to be asked to authorise it without being told something about it, and I would like the Financial Secretary to consent to withdrawing this Estimate of £500 which, as I say, commits us to the larger item, until this House has had & full report as to what is really
intended with regard to the expenditure of such a very large sum of money.
That could not have happened in my day. [Interruption.] That interruption sounds rude, but it is not meant to be rude. I admit that the Financial Secretary to the War Office is probably far more efficient at his job than I was. The point I want to make is that the system has been changed. It is because the system has been changed that things of this kind can slip through. The Financial Secretary to the War Office used to be a member of the Army Council, and was almost exclusively charged to see that financial principles of this kind—of not slipping in an Estimate of £1,750,000 upon a token Vote of £500—were observed. That has been altered. It is no longer the job of the Financial Secretary to have care and guardianship over those things. In my day he had under him not only the Director of Contracts as he has now, but the Director of Army Finance and the Director of Financial Services, with the Assistant Financial Secretary over the two of them as his principal financial adviser. Starting a great service of this kind without it even being mentioned in the Secretary of State's Memorandum would have been reported to him through the Director of Financial Services. It would have been my duty to go to see the Master-General of the Ordnance about it, and if we could not have agreed to cut it out and not to do a thing of that kind, it would have been my duty again as Financial Secretary to have the matter brought up before the Army Council. It would have been the duty of the Secretary of the Army Council to see that my minutes on the subject were printed for the Council's consideration, and it would have got done.
If I am right, no papers on a subject of that kind would come to the Financial Secretary at all. They would go up to the Permanent Under-Secretary, through the Deputy Under-Secretary, and the Permanent Under-Secretary would take as much or as little notice of a financial point of that kind as he pleased. Of course, we would not know whether he took notice of it or not. My point is that the old Esher system, under which a Financial Secretary was really responsible for the principles of Army Finance, ought never to have been abandoned.
If that was right, under Lord Esher, the British Army owes a wonder ful debt of gratitude to Lord Esher.

Mr. TINKER: Is it necessary for this ancient history to be brought up?

Sir F. ACLAND: It is interesting to those who study Army finance.

Mr. TINKER: If we had a day or two to spare it would be all right, but we have not.

Sir ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR: Have another day on it.

Mr. TINKER: All right.

Sir A. SINCLAIR: I thought that you did not want it.

Sir F. ACLAND: That system, under which the Financial Secretary really was responsible for Army finance, was the right system. The principle on which Army finance is now only one of the duties of the Permanent Under-Secretary is a mistaken principle, and the change is not to the good. The fact that we have now almost the insult of being asked to pass an Estimate embodying £1,750,000 for these barracks under this token Vote to which I have referred, is a complete justification for further inquiry as to the change which has taken place since the Haldane system was worked out on the basis of the Esher Report, and some of us here will feel bound to vote against Votes like Vote 10 and the others to which I have referred unless at the proper time we can get an answer on the matters which I have thought it right to bring before the House.

6.1 p.m.

Sir IAN MACPHERSON: I do not propose to detain the House for more than a few minutes, because I understand that many of my colleagues would like to take part in the Debate. I do not intend to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for North Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) into his comparison with what happened 25 years ago, but I should not like him to go away with a misunderstanding. The Royal Defence Corps is not a Special Reserve. The Special Reserve is quite a different body of men. As I understand it, the Royal Defence Corps is practically the same corps which existed during the War purely and specially for home defence, recruited from the older men of the community who
were not fit to take part in active service. The Special Reserve, on the other hand, was usually the third battalion of any regiment, which acted as a special feeding battalion to the regiment at the front. I hope that my right hon. Friend will keep that distinction clearly in mind.

Sir F. ACLAND: I am sorry, but it would take me too long to explain.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: I think I am within the knowledge of a great many active service Members of the House when I say that that is the proper description of the two forces. It is a great satisfaction to me to know that the Royal Defence Corps is to come into existence again. For myself, I believe that it is a very valuable corps, and that a great many men who have been active Volunteers or Territorials all their lives, some of them ex-service men, would be anxious, at an age when they are not as fit and active as they were, to take some active part in the defence of their country.
I should like to congratulate my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary on his admirable speech. It has been my fortune, good or bad, to introduce several Army Estimates, but I frankly confess that I have never heard the Army Estimates introduced in so admirable a manner as they were this afternoon. I felt that my hon. Friend had a message to the country about the Army, and, for the first time in a long period, he said what should have been said long ago. I remember, when I was Under-Secretary of State for War, going one morning into the Secretary of State's room, and his saying to me, "What we want is a booster in this office." I did not know at the time what a booster was—whether it was a species of tank, or a mule, or what it was; but I had to pretend that I knew something about it. This great servant of the State saw that other Departments were using the Press and publicity for their needs, while the British Army was doing effectively, as the Financial Secretary pointed out to-day, the most useful work in the world and no notice was being taken of it. To-day we heard, for the first time in a long period, what the British Army has been doing, and I think that when to-morrow we read my hon. Friend's speech calmly and quietly, we shall come to the conclusion that it was one of the best efforts that I,
for one, after 23 years in the House, have heard delivered here.
I should like to deal for a moment with the speech of the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson). It was a very interesting speech, as his speeches on Army questions always are, but it seemed to me that the gravamen of the charge which he made lay, not upon the Financial Secretary to the War Office, but upon some other Department of State. The hon. Member complained about the bad physique of would-be recruits, and it is a regrettable fact that at the present time no less than 33⅓ per cent. should be rejected. But the War Office and the Army are not responsible for that. I regret to say that the conditions obtaining in many parts of the country are responsible for it. The hon. Member quite rightly pointed to that fact, but any charge that the War Office has anything to do with it is, in my judgment, a mistaken charge.

Mr. ATTLEE: In the absence of my hon. Friend, may I point out that he did not do anything of the sort? The point that he made was that the Financial Secretary said that the important factor, after all, was the man, whatever we had in the way of machines, and my hon. Friend pointed out that actually the man was not there.

Sir I. MACPHERSON: In view of the hon. Gentleman's statement, I am quite willing to withdraw what I said. I should not like to misrepresent the hon. Member for Chester-le-Street, and I am perfectly certain that he would not make a false charge. He did ask, however, whether we are getting full value for the money that we are spending. I think that he himself answered that question, because he said, for example, that adolescent education in the Army to-day was better, probably, than adolescent education outside. He paid a great tribute to the morale of the troops. He said they were never in finer condition, and he also pointed out that vocational training and the other advantages which accrue from enlistment in the British Army were never so good as they are now.
Anyone listening carefully to the speech of the Financial Secretary would see that every single penny spent on the Army at the present time is very carefully watched. There is the most careful
economy—not false economy, I hope, because nothing is more dangerous, where the armed Forces of the Crown are concerned, than false economy, but there is clearly no recklessness in spending. I felt very much indebted to my hon. Friend for the special attention which he paid to the various scientific improvements which have been suggested by many high officers of State in connection with the Army. He pointed out to the House how careful they are, and have to be, before they accept any new scientific implement, because in four or five years that scientific implement, with all that it implies, may be out of date. It is well to know that great care is being taken in regard to the acceptance of any new ideas in connection with these scientific implements of war.
I should like to say just a word about the Territorial Force. Again, it is very rarely that one hears sufficient credit given to the Territorial Force, and I am sure the House was delighted to-day to hear my hon. Friend make special reference to them. It is now quite clear that what I may call the coast defence of Great Britain is definitely handed over to the Territorial Force. Everyone knows what this country owes to the Territorial Force, but for two or three years there was a great deal of difficulty in connection with it. One of the reasons ascribed was the fact that there were no camps. But the Territorial soldier does not require very much in return. It is far more a question of patriotism than of pay, and I think that all those who have given voluntarily so much spare-time service to the State will be greatly delighted to read to-morrow the speech which my hon. Friend has delivered this afternoon. I do not wish to detain the House any further, but I thought I should like to add my quota of praise to that to which has already been given to the Financial Secretary, and to say on behalf, not only of the Officers' Training Corps but of the Territorial Force, how delighted they will be by the announcement which has been made this afternoon.

6.11 p.m.

Brigadier-General MAKINS: May I, first of all, add my most sincere congratulations to the Financial Secretary for the way in which he has introduced these Estimates? He has done so with a clarity and wit which I think surpassed
even his effort of last year. I always consider, and I think a great many other people consider, that these Estimates for the Defence Forces of the Crown raise the most important questions that we have to consider in the whole year in this House, for the simple reason that everything depends upon the defence and the security of this country and the Empire. In the event of defeat, our very existence as a Power would disappear. Our economic structure would fall to the ground; we should have no money for any social service, for the relief of unemployment, for debt services, or anything else; we should become absolutely pauperised, and no doubt the Empire would disintegrate. When people talk about cutting these Estimates for the purpose of relieving unemployment, I should like to ask what, in case of our defeat, would be the number of unemployed that we should have in this country? It would not then be a question of cutting their pay; they would get no pay at all. This year we are discussing the Army Estimates on a rather different footing from previous years since the War. Our vigorous and wholehearted attempts to bring about agreement between the nations have so far hardly had a modicum of success. We have been told that we should go on hoping. We are not to be
even as those without hope.
I remember the quotation:
Hope, if once believed, lasts a long time. She is indeed deceitful, but she is nevertheless a convenient deity.
We do not want to make a convenience of this hope. Hope deferred maketh the heart sick, and this hope has been deferred for a great many years now. All the gestures that we have made during recent years—the great and serious reductions that we have made in our armaments—have so far had no effect whatever. Indeed, many people are now of opinion that we are only weakening, and not strengthening, our position in the councils of the nations. Anyhow, I think that the country at large is beginning to wake up to the seriousness of our position and the risks that we are running.
The Army Estimates are in a different position from those of the Air Force and the Navy. The Air Force and the Navy have certain definite objectives. The Air Force has the long-range objective of
seeking parity with the next strongest nation; and it has its short-range objective of building up and completing the 1923 programme. The Navy is bound by treaty, and its objective is to replace all obsolete ships and keep itself as efficient as it can be within the treaty. The Army is bound by no treaty. This small Army of ours should be the most perfect instrument that human skill can possibly make it. The most important points that occur to me come under five heads. The first is that the Army should be up to full strength; secondly, the reserves should be sufficient to put it on a war footing and supply war wastage for a sufficient number of weeks and months in order to train other men; thirdly, that it should be properly trained; fourthly, that it should be armed with up-to-date armaments and that there should be sufficient warlike stores and equipment; and, fifthly, that it could be mobilised and ready to take the field at home or abroad in the shortest possible time. As regards strength, things are not very satisfactory. We are 3,800 under strength. The general Army Reserve seems to be a diminishing quantity during this year, though there are hopes that the Supplementary Reserve will be increased. However, on those two points we have the satisfaction of feeling that the Financial Secretary is fully alive and is taking every step he possibly can to keep the numbers of the Army up. With regard to training, it is again very satisfactory to hear that we are going to have extended manoeuvres this year, because you cannot train your Army properly, you cannot have your higher command exercised, and you cannot have your other troops trained without extended manoeuvres.
On the fourth point I do not feel quite so happy. We were in the position for some years after the War of living on our own fat. There were a great many warlike stores accumulated, and we were able to use them up. Now they are used up, and we have to replenish them. I saw last week in the military correspondence of a reputable paper—they are not all reputable, but this was one—that to put the Army on a war footing would cost the country £50,000,000. I can only hope that that is either untrue or grossly exaggerated. We should like the Financial Secretary to reassure us on the point. There are other good points that I have
noticed which come under this heading. At last we are going to have an anti-tank gun. We have been calling out for this for the last two or three years to replace the green flag which has always been carried on manoeuvres, and I hope we shall never more see what I understand happened in the manoeuvres last year, when a local parson stood strictly to attention and saluted the green flag thinking it was the regimental colours. I am glad to see, too, that the cavalry regiments are going to be issued with a new light machine gun. We have also been asking for that for some time to replace the obsolete Hotchkiss. I understand the cavalry have also had issued to them a gun and I hope it will be not merely fortuitous that the British cavalry and Indian cavalry will be armed with the same gun.
With regard to mobilisation, in 1914 we mobilised six divisions with some speed, and got them sent to France. There was also a seventh division which got to France in about two months, together with the third cavalry division. At present, I understand, we have only five divisions. I do not know whether a sixth division is to be formed on the same lines as the seventh in 1914, but the great point that we are worried about is how soon these divisions, five or six, can be mobilised. I know there may be good reasons for withholding this information, but people are disturbed with regard to the speed with which these divisions can be mobilised and made ready for war. It seems to me that the period of mobilisation really should be accelerated and shortened. War may start within a very few hours. Hostilities will very likely begin within two or three hours of a declaration of war, if there is a declaration of war, which is not always certain. We shall not get the breathing space which the old wooden walls of England, or the steel walls of the Navy as they now are, gave us so that we could mobilise more or less at our leisure. Therefore it is most important to get on with the work with those five divisions and see that the mobilisation period is accelerated as much as possible. Vocational training, health and discipline are all things that are most necessary and go to make the machine perfect and efficient but they are all more or less ancillary, and the points that I have mentioned are those
which it is most important to look at at present.
It is good news to hear that there is to be this new Royal Defence Corps. That will enable the Territorials to keep their units complete, and the Defence Corps will take over all the smaller duties which have to be performed. I always like to see a piece of organisation of this sort, which is useful and at the same time costs nothing. It will cost nothing until it comes into being. I often think that a great deal more organisation without cost could be done, and I wonder if there is in the pigeon holes of some Department a scheme for food control of the country immediately war breaks out, so as to stop all confusion at the commencement. There might also be some plan with regard to man power so that we do not find, as we did in 1914, that key men, who would be most useful afterwards, are rushed to the colours and killed when other men might have served in their places and the key men might have been kept for better work later on.
We who have belonged to the Army do not want to criticise our own Service in any way. All we want to do is to impress upon the Government the importance of seeing that it has all the personnel and matériel to make it a perfect machine for war. The staff, the officers, and the men are as good, I should think better than ever they were before, and all they want is to be provided with the sinews of war. We do not ask for information which it is not in the interests of the Service to divulge, but we should like an assurance that the Government are alive to the serious situation and will remedy any defects at the earliest possible moment. Some years ago, when the country was very disturbed with regard to the condition of the Navy, Lord Fisher said that everyone could go home and sleep quietly in his bed. I should like the Financial Secretary to tell us, with that conviction which comes from truth, that we can go home to-night with a feeling of confidence and sleep the sleep of the just.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. PALING: This is the third Estimate for the fighting forces that we have debated this week, and in each there is an increase on what has been spent previously. I have never heard such acclamation from admirals, rear-admirals,
vice-admirals, generals, air people and all the rest, as there has been because the Estimates are going up, and that now, all these years after the War, we are once again getting back to fighting efficiency. The hon. and gallant Gentleman who has just spoken was despondent because he read in a reputable paper that it would cost us £50,000,000 to prepare for war. I do not think he need be over-despondent. If we go on at this rate, we shall soon have achieved the £50,000,000 mark and he will have all the efficiency that he requires. I wonder where we are going to land ourselves. Have we given up all hope that war cannot be avoided, and are we going to join, have we already joined, in a general race of armaments? It appears very much like it. Far from viewing with acclamation the things that have occurred in the last week in these three Services, I view them with considerable alarm. The hon. and gallant Gentleman wishes us to be in such a state that we can sleep quietly in our beds. If we go on like this much longer, in a year or two at the most we shall probably be in such a state that we shall not be able to sleep quietly in our beds.
The right hon. Baronet the Member for Ross and Cromarty (Sir I. Macpherson) joined in the general acclamation. He thinks everything is all right and that this increase is to be welcomed. The Army is efficient and everything is being done for the good of the Army, the people, the nation and all the rest of it. I can remember the time when Liberalism, if it stood for anything, stood for peace, retrenchment and reform, and Liberals used to fight the Estimates for the fighting Services with all their might. They are part of the National Government to-day and appear to have dropped their Liberalism, and they have joined with the generals in their acclamations because the Financial Secretary has come forward with another increase in the war Services. There appear to be only the few people on these benches left to oppose these things at all. I must, however, join in the general acclamation in congratulating the Financial Secretary on the way he presented the Estimates. He said this was the day of mobility and, if we required a small force anywhere, we conveyed a
few men by aeroplane. In other words, we did not use an elephant to crack a nut.
The same thing applies to the question of presenting these Estimates. They used to be presented in a much cruder and bolder form than they are to-day. The hon. Member has learnt a lesson too. He presents them in a much more subtle form, and because of that they are much more dangerous. He was so powerful in his advocacy this afternoon that I am not sure whether in a few more minutes I would not have joined the Army myself. He made it appear to be such a glorious place, that if young men and old men could get into it, it would be a better job than being in the House of Commons. Why on earth, in face of all the things he said about the Army this afternoon, we should lack recruits passes my comprehension. Somebody said that we wanted a booster. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman would like that term applied to him. Perhaps it would be too much of an American term and too crude, but I think that he is probably the best booster which the Army has in this country at the present time.
He went on, with regard to the schools which are training officers, to criticise a book which has been written this year against this kind of thing. He said that the book had been admirably written and presented its case so lucidly and so well that some of the schoolmasters who were the heads of these schools were very much disturbed in their minds about it. I hope that that is true. If these people are getting disturbed in their minds, it is a very good sign, and it may be that these things will tend to drop in the future rather than become more efficient. After all the admirable arguments of the hon. Member, I disagree with him as to whether this training does not create a military spirit in those who have to undergo it. I have exercised my mind about this matter since he uttered those words, and I have not quite found out what he meant. He said that he was trying to illustrate it, and that in stating that the training in a public school tended to create a military mind, you might as well say that the training for football or playing football tended to induce people to attempt murder. I do not see the analogy. If a boy is trained to kick a football, he is trained with the idea that
he is going to take part in actual football. It appears to me also that if a boy is trained in military exercises he will have inculcated the idea that at some time his training will be of use, and that he will actually take part in fighting and in war. That is the danger which we think lies in this question of training from that particular angle.
I want to make another protest, and I am glad that the Prime Minister is here. I wonder what he thinks about all the arguments which have been advanced during the past week in respect of the Air Force, the Navy and the Army. I learned a lot of things from him. In so far as I am a pacifist, a lot of my pacifism is due to the words which fell from his lips and the books which he wrote. I wonder whether, in those circumstances, he feels very comfortable to-day as Prime Minister of a Government who, for the first time since the War, are beginning to send up the Estimates and the cost of things which make for war. What is his idea about disarmament problems and so on? Has he given them up? Has he finished with them, and has he come to the conclusion that we have reached the end of our efforts and have done all that is humanly possible, and that there remains nothing now for the country to do, with him at the head of the Government, except to spend more money on armaments and to prepare as fast as we can for the next war which everybody here seems to think is inevitable? What is his idea about it? It will be very interesting to hear it.
Is the right hon. Gentleman comfortable as the Prime Minister responsible for the Government which imposed all the cuts in 1931, and does he think that it is right, if it is true, as is so often claimed from the benches opposite, that under their guidance the country has recovered financial stability, that the first things which should have precedence in extra money being spent upon them should be the war Services, the Air Force, the Navy and the Army? What does he think about that? In other words, has he departed from his own principle that the first people who ought to have preference in this regard are the people whose lives depend upon the amount of money which they are getting to-day. Would it not have been much better if the £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 being spent extra on the Services had
been spent in restoring benefits to the unemployed people, or even in giving the three shillings which a good many of his own supporters wanted when children's allowances were discussed a fortnight ago? I protest as vehemently as I can against this money being spent in this particular direction at the present time.
I wish to ask a question or two on the Memorandum which has been placed before us. The first paragraph is a jewel. It says:
Although the Army Estimates for 1934 which have been fixed at a net total of £39,600,000, show an increase of £1,650,000, they are still £330,000 legs than the Estimates for 1931.
In other words, although it is true that we are increasing the Estimates this year, you need not be alarmed, take it calmly, there is no reason for disturbance, as we are still spending £330,000 less than in 1931. Nobody has any room for any criticism until we have passed the point at which we stood in 1931. Is that the policy of the Government? Does the Prime Minister agree with that aspect of affairs? Is he prepared to adopt the statement that, although there is an increase, as it does not reach the 1931 level, there is no room for alarm? They go on in the third paragraph to say:
The additional funds which the House of Commons is asked to vote this year will be devoted to the modernisation of coast and other defences, the continuation of the programme of mechanisation, the building up of suitable reserves of stores, the improvement of barracks and particularly the replacement of hutted accommodation, etc.
Perhaps the Financial Secretary will reply to these things. Are not the things contained in this paragraph those which occur every year? Has not some provision to be made for these four or five things mentioned here every year? Is it not part of the ordinary expenditure of the Army to spend money on things such as depreciation and replacement? If that be so, why is it necessary that such a huge amount of extra money should be spent on the things mentioned in the third paragraph of the Memorandum? There is another thing, too. It is said:
The provisions of the new Unemployment Bill will add nearly £150,000 to the Estimates.
It goes on to say:
Prices of certain commodities have risen with the result that the cost of feeding and clothing is greater.
When the hon. Gentleman replies, will he tell us the commodities the prices of which have risen, from whence we get them, and how much the price has risen? Has the price of these commodities risen because of the policy being pursued by the Government in other directions, because, for instance, of the activities of the Minister of Agriculture and of the tariffs, prohibitions, etc., which have been put on as part of the general policy of the Government? On page 3 of the Memorandum a table is given which shows that the amount spent in 1931 was £39,930,000, as against £36,488,000 in 1932 after the economies were imposed. So much of these economies, I think I am right in saying, resulted from the imposition of cuts on wages. I do not know how much. Generally speaking, I think that people in the Army had a cut of about 10 per cent. or something approaching that figure. I do not know what the aggregate total of the cut amounted to. It is well to bear in mind that the increases which were made last year and this year do not take into account a single penny towards putting back the cuts made in the pay either of officers or men. Suppose that in the Budget the cuts are restored—I do not think it will be so—then the Estimates will be increased by that amount. I am not complaining about that, but I wish it had been possible, in increasing the Estimates, for the Financial Secretary to have looked to the rank and file of the Army first and restored the cuts which were imposed upon them, and which, no doubt, they feel to be as big a hardship as that on any other section of the community. On page 4 of the Memorandum we come to the question of "Strength and recruiting," and the Financial Secretary in his statement said—if I am wrong he will correct me—that the increase in recruiting came to an end in September last.

Mr. COOPER: indicated assent.

Mr. PALING: The hon. Gentleman says that I am right. I should like him to explain why this was so. It has been said by the right hon. Gentleman who spoke from the Liberal Benches this afternoon that it was generally held that recruiting was best in times of unemployment. How far that is true I do not know, but when the hon. Gentleman said that it stopped suddenly in September, I
wondered whether there was any particular reason for the stoppage. If there is, I would be very glad if he would explain it when he replies. At the bottom of page 4 the question of "Vocational Training and Education" is referred to. Will the hon. Gentleman give us some idea as to the particular trades in which the men are trained and what is the length of time taken in their training? He stated this afternoon that 85 per cent. of the people turned out get into employment, and I am ready to agree with him that that is a remarkably high percentage. I should like to know if the efficiency of the training and the particular trades in which they are trained have anything to do with it. Probably they have not. On page 5 of the Memorandum under the heading "Health of the Army" the second paragraph says:
The figures for rejection of recruits by medical officers again show a slight increase from 370 to 378 a thousand "—
That is roughly one-third—
and, in addition, nearly 16,000 men were rejected by the recruiting staff for obvious physical defects.
Roughly one-third are refused after they have been medically examined, but there are 16,000 whose physical defects are so obvious that they are refused without a medical examination. When the 16,000 is added to the one-third, what is the percentage of refusals in relation to the total number of people applying for entry? The last question to which I wish to call attention is that dealt with at the bottom of page 5 under the heading "Discipline."
The physical and educational standards of recruits accepted are higher than in past years.
Does it mean that the physical standards set down for recruits in the Army to-day are higher than they have been in past years, and, if so, has it anything to do with the increase in the percentage of recruits refused?

6.44 p.m.

Major The Marquess of TITCHFIELD: The late Lord Chaplin, whom we loved and respected, was once lost in the maze at Hatfield. It was a hot day, and Lord Chaplin knew that he would be rescued before long, so he sat on a seat in the middle of the maze to practise a speech which he was to make in this House on the following day. A friend of mine overheard him declaim like this:
Mr. Speaker, it was not my intention to intervene in this Debate;
Nor would I have intervened if the Financial Secretary to the War Office had said something about marriage allowances in the Territorial Army. Historians relate that Alexander the Great gave marriage allowances to his troops on the proviso that they married Persian ladies. It is my intention to-night to persuade the Government, if I can, to give allowances to other ranks in the Territorial Army at an earlier age than heretofore. On the 14th February last I put a question to the Financial Secretary to the War Office asking what was the annual cost to the taxpayer of a Yeomanry trooper, corporal and sergeant, and I received the reply stating that a trooper costs the taxpayer £28 10s. per year, a corporal, £30, and a sergeant, £32. Throughout the Territorial Army there is an annual wastage, which varies all over the country, of really good men who leave the Territorial Army when they enter the marriage arena. They are valuable men, and I believe that it would pay the State to retain their services.
Let me take the cost of a boy who enlists as a trumpeter at the age of 14. This is by no means a rare case. When I was a Squadron Leader in my own regiment, which I have now the honour to command, I enlisted two trumpeters, brothers, at that age, and I am proud to say that they are now both troop-sergeants in the regiment. What have these men cost the State? I worked it out, roughly, the other day. Let us say that it takes a trumpeter, who has the same rate of pay as a trooper, five years before he gets his two stripes. According to the Financial Secretary the annual cost of his training is £28 10s. per year. Therefore, the cost to the State of his first five years is £142 10s. Let us say that he is for three years a corporal, which means another £90, and one year a sergeant, which means another £32. That man is now 23 years of age. Apart from the cost, which amounts to no less a figure than £264, that man I say is an extremely valuable asset to this country.
A married soldier in the Territorial Army gets 1s. a day marriage allowance. My regiment go to camp for 17 days. Therefore the allowance that a married soldier gets, if he has no children, is 17s.
per year. This man refuses to re-engage. The State has spent a great deal of money on him and through training him has made for itself a very valuable asset, but just because the State refuses to pay a trifling sum it throws a great asset away. During the past year the regiment which I have the honour to command has suffered 10 casualties through the depredations of cupid. I have worked it out that to train those 10 men the State has paid no less a sum that £1,140, and by paying £8 10s. per year these men might have been kept as very valuable assets to the State.
Let me say a few words about marriage allowances in general. The yeoman, I assert, is far worse treated than his brother in the Regular Army. The yeoman gets 1s. a day for his wife, and 5s., 4s. and 2s. per week according to the number of children that he may possess. Let us compare those conditions with the conditions in the Regular Army. There are very few employers who while the yeoman is in camp continues to give him his civilian wage. There are a few who allow the wage, but they are few and far between. I am certain that all of us take off our hats to those employers who are patriotic enough to go on giving the yeoman his civilian pay while he is doing his training. The yeoman in many cases gives up his annual holiday to go to camp. I should think that the average rent which a yeoman in my part of the country pays is somewhere between 9s. and 10s. a week. The regular soldier gets coal and gas free. He pays only 1s. per week for his quarters. He gets a certain amount of furniture supplied, also free medical attention for himself and I believe for his family, and I understand that he gets free travelling allowances for his family on one or two occasions in the year. Therefore, compared with the yeoman the married Regular soldier is far better off.
I believe we shall all agree that those people who are prepared to serve their country ought to be treated equally, at any rate during the time they are in uniform, but I assert that there is no equality in the matter of marriage allowances between the Regular soldier and the Territorial soldier. In these days not a few of our yeomen are out of work, and the yeoman and his wife in many cases are going through very hard times. It should be the duty of every
Member of this House to try and ameliorate those conditions if they possibly can. The yeomen of England are still one of the vertebra in the backbone of this country, as they have been for many hundreds of years past. For my peroration I would go to the words of Henry V, when he was trying to rouse to the utmost the fighting spirit of our people:
And you good Yeomen,
Whose limbs were made in England,
Shew us here
The metal of yon pasture.
I think the wars of the last 30 years have proved that that sentiment is as true to-day as when it was first declaimed 350 years ago by England's greatest poet. I do ask the Government to try and do something to ameliorate the conditions in which the yeoman and his wife found themselves at the present time.

6.55 p.m.

Mr. TINKER: The candour of the Noble Lord is very entertaining and pleasing to all of us. He does not attempt any disguise. He said that he was working up to his peroration. We all try to work to a peroration but we do not like to say that it is a peroration. He began by saying that he had not intended to take part in the Debate. I will begin by saying that I intended to take part, and I have been trying all the afternoon to get in. I hope that hon. Members will not take the wrong view of what I am about to say, but I do think that speeches might be shorter. It is well that from time to time we should draw attention to this matter, because often a speaker does not realise the length of time that he has occupied. I appreciated very much the speech of the Financial Secretary except the reference he made to the Leader of the Opposition. I should have been glad had he left that out. I do not think that it was meant in any wrong spirit, but I think it would have been better had he not mentioned it. Apart from that matter, the speech was all that could be desired.
With regard to the Memorandum, I should like to deal with vocational training and education. I am very pleased that vocational training has been developed in connection with the Army. I find that
During the year ended the 30th September last 2,340 soldiers received training
before leaving the Service, of whom 1,997 or 85.3 per cent. obtained employment.
That means, I suppose, that the remaining 15 per cent. have not found employment. It is stated that:
In the three years from 1930 to 1933 7,040 men have passed through the Army vocational centres, of whom 78 per cent. are known to have found employment.
Even after the vocational training and education these men are getting, when they are sent out into the world a large number are not able to get employment. That brings me back to this point; does the House realise how difficult it must be for others who have not had vocational training to find employment, when those who have had vocational training cannot find work. The men who get this special vocational training in the Army are men who are physically fit and who leave the Army fit for anything. When they cannot get employment, surely it must occur to the minds of hon. Members that there is little if any chance of the vast army of unemployed obtaining employment. While we desire that the ex-soldiers should get work we cannot get away from the fact that the vast army of the unemployed need our urgent attention.
I should like to raise a point with regard to men who have left the Army. I have particulars of a case which I have sent to the Financial Secretary and I should like him to clear up something in connection with it. I do not know exactly what the position is. The man was demobilised from the Great War in 1919. Twelve months ago he wrote for his papers and he was told that he was discharged on the 31st March, 1920. Therefore he has asked me whether he is entitled to any pay from the Army from the time he was demobilised to the time when he was removed from the active list. The reply of the Financial Secretary is not very clear. He told me that it is extremely improbable that the person mentioned is entitled to any remuneration for the period between his demobilisation and discharge, that the relevant pay records had been destroyed and that no claim could be entertained for that period. That will give no satisfaction to the man. All I am asking is that the hon. Gentleman in his reply should tell the House definitely that a man cannot receive any further
pay from the Army. The man wants a definite answer one way or the other, and the mere statement that the Army papers have been destroyed will not give him any satisfaction.
Another point concerns the various forces that we have. On the first page we are told that we now have 149,500 people on the active list, and further on we are told that the average regimental strength is 183,000 persons. I am at a loss to know what forces are toeing added to make the first figure up to the second. Next the Memorandum gives the number of courts-martial as 1,938 and the discharges for misconduct as 692. I wish to find out from the Financial Secretary whether these men were discharged because of the courts-martial, and, if so, what were the particular grounds that led to their discharge; was it because of discontent with Army routine or because they were not fit for service? That information means something to hon. Members on this side of the House. If recruiting is going down and men are not coming forward, there must be some reason to account for it.
Turning to the Army Estimates, and the subject of the mechanisation of the Army. I wish to say that I want an Army; I believe that it is necessary, and I do not object to the Army being as efficient as possible. I agree with every speaker on those lines. But while mechanisation is coming along, I cannot understand why we keep obsolete items of the Army. It might be thought that that mechanisation would take from us many of the things which are not required. Here we have cavalry retained practically at its former strength. In 1933 the full total for all ranks was 8,114; this year it has fallen by 12. Yet we are mechanising and improving the Army, and everybody who knows what mechanisation means knows that cavalry is out of date altogether.

Lieut.-Colonel APPLIN: Would the hon. Member pardon me if I say that mechanisation would not work at all if the cavalry were not there to make a way for the mechanical vehicles?

Mr. TINKER: The hon. and gallant Member expresses a fine sentiment, but I hope that the old Army officer will recognise the change in the times. I cannot understand how an Army officer can stand up and tell me that the mechanised
forces require cavalry to make a way for them. They do not require it at all; the cavalry are useless for all practical purposes. In the Great War, except on one or two occasions, they were of no use except for purely spectacular purposes.

Captain FULLER: Is it not the fact that some of these cavalry regiments are mechanised?

Mr. TINKER: That is the point. Mechanisation has not decreased the cavalry. The total number of horses and mules used on British establishments in 1933 was 16,408; now it is 16,294. There is no necessity for horses to that extent. I wish to appeal to one hon. Member to whom I mentioned the matter last night, but who is not present now, the hon. Member for Gillingham (Sir R. Gower). From time to time he brings forward appeals in the House for the removal of pit ponies, arguing that there is no right to keep them in the mines. I hope that he will turn his attention to horses in the Army. It is sheer slaughter to use horses in the Army during war. They are of no practical use; they are just sent out and blown to atoms by the artillery of the opposing forces. I am not speaking from mere theory, but from practical experience. In the last War I saw horses blown to pieces on many occasions with no chance of escape, and they are not of the slightest use at all to the Army. I therefore claim that, if we are to build up an efficient Army—which is necessary—the heads of the Army will try to remove the obsolete parts of it and not lay upon it this tremendous burden of unnecessary horses. I have been trying to find out the cost of keeping the horses, but it seems to be merged in the general expenditure. It is probably a tremendous item. Perhaps the Financial Secretary—who has not been taking much notice of me; I dare say he expects me to come forward with my complaint in every Debate on this subject—will endeavour to abolish these redundant items in his efforts to build up an efficient Army.
On the question of the co-ordination of the Forces: We are taking these Debates separately, and each Service is striving for its own hand. In the excellent speech which he made to-day the Financial Secretary said that the Services were each interdependent on the others, and he proved conclusively that the Navy would not get on very well without the
Army to provide its means of transport and defend the docks, and that it was necessary for all the Services to work together. The time has come when the heads of all three should come together and try to reach a co-ordination of the Estimates so as to deal with all the Services as a whole. Hon. Members on this side are just as anxious as any hon. Member on those benches to have an efficient force to defend these shores. I am not for disarmament for example, only by agreement. While, however, we are considering this matter, I want to work on the lines of economy and to build up the three Services together, so that we may know exactly where the money is going. Anybody who deals with these matters, on a town council or anywhere else, knows that every Service is fighting for its own hand. We cannot blame them. Each one thinks that its own particular branch should get everything. The three should, however, have one common object, the protection of those parts of the Empire which have the right to be protected. The Services ought to be coordinated so that everybody would know the extent of all.

7.10 p.m.

Captain ARTHUR HOPE: Every year I look forward to two things in these Army Debates. One is the speech of the Financial Secretary, which to-day was, by common consent, one of the best we have heard in this House for a long time. The other is the annual wrangle between the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) and the ex-cavalry officers in this House. As I see many cavalry officers thirsting for the blood of the hon. Member for Leigh, I will not refer to that part of his speech. I should like, however, to endorse what he said at the end of it about co-ordination. I am very glad that this should be a non-party question, and that hon. Members of that party also believe that there should be much more co-ordination between the Forces.
I agree with every point in the excellent speech of the Financial Secretary except one, and that is the point I raised last year on this Debate, the amalgamation of Woolwich and Sandhurst. The hon. Gentleman is a practical person and would not be led away in this matter by any unnecessary sentiment, but I cannot help feeling that the Committee which examined this question and agreed
that it was practical and would be economical must have shown very great signs of sentiment indeed to persuade the Financial Secretary to the War Office that it was essential to keep Sandhurst and Woolwich separate. On the score of economy there can be no argument whatever. That vast area at Woolwich is most valuable ground and could be sold for a very large sum indeed, and at the same time there is an enormous amount of ground at Sandhurst where, if necessary, it will be possible to build more accommodation for cadets.
I would go even further, at the risk of being considered heretical among Regular Army officers. I am very doubtful indeed of the necessity of having either Sandhurst or Woolwich. The Financial Secretary mentioned, from the other point of view, the many distinguished generals who came into the Army by different ways—one from Oxford, another from the militia, a third from the ranks. All those generals of the immediate past had, he said, been highly successful without any Sandhurst or Woolwich training at all. In my own experience as a junior officer in the late War, I met an enormous number of civilians who originally knew nothing whatever about Army life and Army training, but who not only did their jobs as platoon and company commanders but rose to be commanders of battalions and brigades, and even became extremely successful as staff officers. The hon. Member for Altrincham (Sir E. Grigg) is a classic example of a man without any military training of any kind before the War, who joined the Grenadier Guards at the beginning of the War as a second-lieutenant and in 2½ years, by sheer merit, was the general staff officer, first grade, of the Guards' Division. He did not go to Sandhurst, Woolwich or the Staff College, but he knew as much about staff work, the training of recruits and the running of a division at the end of the War as all the Staff College graduates and those who had been educated at Sandhurst and Woolwich. The Financial Secretary, whom I first met at the end of the War, was just as good in command of troops in the field as I was, who had been at Sandhurst.
It is not necessary nowadays, when so many ways are open for officers to come into the Army, to keep up these vast establishments at Sandhurst and
Woolwich in order to force into the Army many people who after three or four years leave it because they do not like it and go into civilian life. There are at present many ways by which officers can get into the Army. A great many still come in through the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and many through the Supplemental Reserve. I would suggest to the War Office that they should consider the possibility of making all officers join their units for a year or 18 months on probation to learn their job in the regiments to which they will be posted at the end of their supplementary time. The Army will not suffer, and it will be economical to the State and to the parents of the boys now being sent from Woolwich and Sandhurst.
I want to refer to the question of promotion, especially in the higher regimental ranks. I have felt for a long time that a certain number of officers when they reach the rank of senior captain or junior major are known by the commanding officer of their battalion or regiment as not likely to be suitable to become commanding officers in due course. Many people are exceedingly good in the junior ranks but have not the power of commanding large bodies of men. They have not the personality to make successful commanding officers. When they have been second in command for some time they are then forced to retire, as they are not likely to be given command of their units. It might be possible to facilitate promotion if these officers were asked at an earlier date to resign their commissions in order to facilitate the promotion of those who are likely to go to the top. It is not dishonourable to these officers to do so. Then there is the other end, the under-paid lance-corporal. In every battalion there are a number of under-paid lance-corporals wearing a stripe, with all the responsibility of paid corporals, but none of their remuneration. They have to associate with the non-commissioned ranks, they cannot be seen with their old friends in the ranks, and for 18 months they have to do the full work of the non-commissioned ranks without getting one penny extra.
I should like to ask the Financial Secretary whether the War Office have had any complaints on the subject of the Lewis gun. I understand that the Lewis gun, which played such a prominent part in
the life and efficiency of an infantry battalion during the War, is not considered reliable or satisfactory by a good many officers. I know that during the War it was liable to stoppages and breakdowns if any mud or dirt got into it, as was frequently the case, and was certainly the case in the years following the War. It was unsatisfactory at manoeuvres and on the range, and I understand that it is causing a great deal of misgivings to units who have been abroad in troublesome places when they have had to guard a road with a Lewis gun against the possibility of a mob attack. They have not had full reliance on the gun. They cannot rely on it altogether, and they are inclined to get a machine gun to cover the Lewis gun. It is a technical point, but I hope the Financial Secretary will look into it. In conclusion, may I again congratulate the Financial Secretary on his magnificent statement as to the condition of the Army of which we are all exceedingly proud, and which under the present regime of Lord Hailsham and his officials is certainly in good hands.

7.20 p.m.

Major LLEWELLIN: There are one or two matters connected with the Territorial Army upon which I want to say a word or two. Let me, first of all, congratulate the Financial Secretary on his brilliant speech this afternoon. I have read the last book he published, and when the next on Lord Haig comes out I shall hasten to buy it, as I know it will read as well as his speech this evening will read in to-morrow's OFFICIAL REPORT. In the memorandum by the Secretary of State for War I read these words:
During the year the Regular Army continued to render valuable assistance to the Territorial Army.
It is right that a member of the Territorial Army should in this House say how much they appreciate the great assistance that has been given them not only by the staffs of the Regular Army, but also by those who are sent to us as adjutants and permanent staff instructors. At the present moment, the amount of car allowance paid to adjutants and indeed to all the Regular officers who travel, has been severely cut. It hits particularly hard the Territorial adjutant who has to get about a large county from one drill hall to another night after night. The allowance has been severely cut down. I ask
the War Office to compare it with the allowance paid to officials of other Departments. If they compare it with the allowances granted to inspectors of schools, they will find that the Regular officer gets about one-third of the allowance that is paid to a school inspector for travelling. It is vitally important that an adjutant should be able to have a car, and you have not in these days in the Army men who have always sufficient means to keep a car and run it unless the allowance is adequate to pay the running expenses. The present car allowance is certainly not adequate.
Let me say a word about the permanent staff instructors. We want the very best men that can be got from the Regular Army. We are getting them now more than we did in the years just after the War, but I am slightly alarmed by the Army Council's instruction, which says that only in exceptional circumstances shall a permanent staff instructor be allowed to carry on at the same unit for a prolonged period. If we get a man who happens to fit in with the people in the area, who can keep his drill hall properly, who can instruct properly, and set an example of soldierly bearing, we want that man much more than the Regular Army. It may delay promotion for a year or two in the Regular Army, but I put in a strong plea for these men to stay on for a year or two despite the Army Council's instruction. I should like to endorse what has been said in regard to the marriage allowance for young soldiers. It is clear that if a young Territorial joins at the age of 18 he is likely by the end of four years to have got married. Then comes the time when he has to decide whether to re-engage or not, and this is often determined toy the fact that he cannot get any marriage allowance if he goes to camp. The man has become useful to us after four years, and the extra amount of money would be very little. I do not know how my hon. and gallant Friend manages to get 17 days' pay for his yeomanry, I can only manage to get 14 days' pay for my brigade, but I do not propose to take up that matter with him at the present moment.
Again, a man in the Territorial Army, who has had a year of embodied service, if he is a qualified gun-layer or
range-finder, can get proficiency pay like his Regular comrade, that is, if he has done a year of embodied service. We are getting fewer men in the Territorial Army who have a year of embodied service, and we still have to have our layers and range-takers, and I think that the provision for a year of embodied service might now well be dispensed with, because the particular part of the Territorial Army with which I am concerned is now the first line of defence, and, therefore, we must have good layers, good range-takers, and good signallers in that branch of the Army. It is often found that these men are much better than their Regular companions who come to camp with us. They know they are better, but they cannot get any proficiency pay. I should like the War Office to lay down an establishment of so many layers and range-takers and specialists of different sorts for different units, and that if they are passed out by the Regular instructor of gunnery, or his assistant, they should be able to draw proficiency pay. It is only 6d. a day for 14 days in camp, and it would be only wanted for a limited number of men. I do not ask for an answer now on this point, but I hope the Financial Secretary will consider the question.
We have been deprived through the action of the War Office of what to us was a source of revenue. We have our drill halls. In the old days we were allowed to let them and make a small profit, but someone in the War Office found it out and said that half the profits were to go to the War Office and half to the Territorial Association. Our particular Territorial Association said you need not pay the half to us. Then an auditor from the War Office came down, found that the Association was not receiving its half, and said, "you have to take it." This means that none of our drill halls have since been let for the simple reason that it takes some trouble to arrange the letting for the officers and the permanent staff instructor, and for other men of the unit. Really it is time that this policy was reconsidered. It may be all right in the case of a drill hall which is in the centre of a big town, but it is not worth while in the case of a drill hall situated in a small country district. The abolition of letting took £30 from our lettings in the year, which would have helped
the unit to give proficiency pay and also the marriage allowance. It is a source of revenue which by this rather short-sighted policy on the part of the War Office is at present lost.
There is another small point. In my view the conditions as to the payment of the bounty should be altered. At present you cannot pay a man for his training in camp unless he has performed 20 drills and, of course, the result is that if the man knows he is not going to get paid for the camp and has only put in fifteen drills he does not come at all, or, if he does, some arrangement has obviously to be made so that he gets his pay. The result is that you lose the man from camp or you have to make out that he has done his full amount of drills which is a thoroughly bad system. The most useful thing for us is to get the man in camp. Pay the man a shilling a day for each of his drills up to 20, and give him a ten-shilling bonus if he comes to camp. Let him draw his camp pay even if he has not put in any drills if the commanding officer wants to take him. I have occupied the time of the House on one particular subject, but I think it is an important one from the point of view of the efficiency of the Territorial Army, which, after all, is an Army to which a large number of people in this country give a good deal of their time. It is little matters like these which brought in a friendly way to the notice of my hon. Friend, I hope, may receive his attention and that of the War Office, and that something may be done to meet these points and so to strengthen the efficiency and numbers of the Territorial Army.

7.32 p.m.

Sir FRANCIS FREMANTLE: I also want to deal with one point, the hardy annual which to my mind is one of the vital points of the defence forces and especially the Army—the medical services. Although I have raised this question at most of the Debates on the Estimates during the 14 years I have been in the House, there is a special reason for doing so this year. Year after year successive Ministers have met the situation in the same way, either by saying nothing about it or by admitting the difficulty, but holding up their hands and saying it is perfectly impossible because medical men would not come forward and
serve and, therefore, they must get on without them. This time we have the report of the excellent committee set up the year before last by the then Secretary of State for War. That committee reported last summer. The chairman was Sir Warren Fisher of the Treasury and the report is in our hands. It is a report of the investigation into the medical services of the three fighting forces, and although I can deal only with one this evening it affects the others as well.
As far as the Army medical services are concerned the committee came to a definite conclusion which in general, is a correct one, accepted by the medical profession, including the British Medical Association, as to the reason for the continued lack of recruits in the medical services. The committee brought forward a large series of recommendations, the general upshot of which is that you have to meet the competition of ordinary civil life in appealing to the young men whom you want to attract to the medical services of the Army. You must meet the particular points they think about when they are considering their future career at the age of 26 or thereabouts, when they become qualified medical men. One point obviously concerns the temporal, material prospects of the services which hitherto have been good enough for the young man but become increasingly burdensome in proportion to his commitments, when he is married and has a family, and still more when he retires. In that way the medical services of the Army have never been able properly to rival the various opportunities offered in civil life.
Another point is that of improved professional services. There is no profession which, after a long course of training, sends out men with a stronger desire to devote themselves to their profession, but the committee suggest a certain improvement in this respect, and they say it is possible, without any total increase in expenditure but by an adjustment, to get better prospects for the individuals who go in, by upgrading, so that they may obtain promotion at an earlier stage, and by continuing longer in the services be able to make a career. On the other hand, there should be a short-term service so that those who enter for five years might retire with a grant of £1,000 to enter into civil life and practice. There would then be a great opportunity for
getting a sufficient number of recruits for the service.
We have not yet had the decision of His Majesty's Government on the subject. The British Medical Association, which has had the matter in hand all the way through on behalf of the profession, wrote to the three Departments concerned, and as far as the Army is concerned, the other day they received the reply that the Army Council have found it necessary to discuss the recommendations of the Fisher Committee with the India Office, who have had to communicate with the Government of India which, as will be readily appreciated, is closely concerned in the effect of the recommendations. The War Office add:
I am to ask you to convey to your Council the assurance that the question is being actively pursued and a reply will be sent at the earliest opportunity.
Will the Financial Secretary in his reply give any indication when these matters are to be dealt with? Meanwhile, the difficulty continues. It is not to be treated lightly, though most people naturally treat it as a matter which does not concern them very much. Again and again this country has found itself landed in a war in which the neglect of the medical services has come home to roost in the actual torture and suffering of the men who in the war are deprived of proper services. This is not only a matter of professional concern. If the men in these services are to bring their talent to the point required, it means a very special training, and you cannot improvise it on the spur of the moment. You will always get men from civil practice in time of war, but that is the least that is required by an Army in the field. You have preventive services which cannot be improvised, services for looking after troops in the field in conditions which are not met with in civil practice. You have the liaison services and hospital services, and yet year after year in the 15 years since the end of the War we have gone on with a diminishing number of recruits, a number of the elderly officers assisted by civilians who will not be able to proceed to the higher ranks. Consequently you have the whole service disorganised. You are heading for disaster such as you had at the be ginning of the South African War. Some of us remember what appalling results
there were then from the deliberate starvation by the War Office and the indifference of Parliament to the necessities of the case.
I hope we are not going to have that repeated. We are too late now, but it is essential for the War Office to take the matter up. Not only the medical services but the British Dental Association are concerned, and the dental services and nursing are equally essential to the service as a whole. According to the Warren Fisher Report it is not so serious in regard to these two ancillary services. The British Dental Association have a definite scheme. I hope the War Office will make up its mind, with the other departments concerned, during next year, and will get a move on in order to get a campaign of recruitment of the men whom we do want in the medical service.

COMBINED OPERATIONS (TRAINING).

7.44 p.m.

Wing-Commander JAMES: I beg to move, to leave out from "That" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
in view of the fact that any future military operations that this country may be obliged to undertake will depend upon naval and aerial communications and cooperation, this House is of opinion that steps should be taken to ensure the training of His Majesty's Army for combined operations with the other Services.
The "Times," commenting on the ballot, the luck of which has given me the right to propose this Amendment, complained that private Members did not seem to know what they wanted to discuss. To that charge I plead not guilty, because the subject of the coordination of the Services is one in which I have for many years taken an interest, and at one time a professional interest. In 1916, in 1917 and 1918, on several occasions, I was employed in France on special duties concerned with co-operation, and for the last three months of the War I was occupying the position of G.S.O.I. on the staff of Sir Ivor Maxse, the Inspector-General of Training, as Royal Air Force representative, for the sole purpose of assisting in the coordination of combined training. I only mention this to justify if possible my somewhat feeble attempt to bring before the House the tremendous importance of this subject.
May I preface the argument which I am about to submit by some general points. Firstly, when I had the choice of the Estimates of the three Services on which to raise this subject I chose the Army, not in any critical spirit, not suggesting thereby that the Army was more backward in co-operation with the other arms than the other arms were in co-operation with the Army. I selected the Army in preference to what would be, for me, the rather more obvious service, the Air Force, solely because I believed there were many more people in this House with experience of the Army who would be willing and able to discuss this subject against an Army background rather than from the Air Service point of view. It is, in fact, immaterial on to which Service this discussion is actually fastened.
Secondly, I shall not make more than the scantiest possible reference to the Navy and combined naval training, although the Motion deals with co-operation as affecting all three Services. My reason for this is the adequate though not always accepted one that I know absolutely nothing about the Navy. But I am certain that naval co-operation with the other arms is just as important as co-operation between the Army and the Air Force, and I am assured that the proposals which I am later going to put forward are equally applicable to the Navy and to the other Services. I welcome the statement made by the First Lord of the Admiralty on Monday last and his most generous and valuable reference to co-operation. It was the most helpful reference to co-ordination in Service training that has ever been made in this House by a First Lord.
Thirdly, even if it were in order to do so I should not be tempted to bring forward the question of a Ministry of Defence. For one reason, I believe that at the present time and for many years to come the creation of a Ministry of Defence would be not merely to put the cart before the horse, but to put the cart before three different horses. Fourthly, I hope that nothing that I say will be taken as an attack upon, or even a hostile criticism of, the Committee of Imperial Defence or, above all, its extremely able secretary. I would rather put the matter in this way—that although I believe that the situation in respect of co-operation training is unsatisfactory as
it is, it would have been infinitely worse but for the valuable work of the Committee of Imperial Defence. My fifth preliminary point is the rather obvious one that this is entirely a non-party subject, because economy and efficiency are the common interests of all parties.
What is the position of unitary training in co-operation as between the Army and the Air Force to-day? It is in my submission—and on this I found my whole case—that it is extremely unsatisfactory. May I give a few illustrations in support of that contention? Anybody can test these points for themselves. Ask any senior officer in almost any regiment, battalion or battery what is the state of co-operation training in his own unit and he will tell you in most cases that there is in that unit not one officer or noncommissioned officer who has had any special training in co-operation. The greater part of Territorial training is today being carried out without relationship to aerial co-operation. I have many times in the last few years been approached personally by Territorial officers who have asked: "How can we get an aeroplane at our annual training?" In some cases, I am told, officers have produced their own private aeroplanes in order to secure this vital cooperation training.
I agree that on paper the scheme looks fairly good but in practice it tends to be brushed aside, not deliberately, but for this reason, that the Air Force and the Army and, to a lesser extent, the Navy, are to-day looking inwards and not outwards. The accumulated experience of the Great War is rapidly being lost. On this point I feel an almost personal interest because during the winter of 1917–1918 the squadron which I was then commanding was made into a training squadron for attached senior officers to teach the other arms something of what we could do and could not do to assist them. It is a coincidence I was commanding that squadron assisted by my hon. Friend the Member for Tavistock (Mr. Patrick) who is to second this Motion. We learned then how senior officers like battery commanders, battalion commanders and even brigade commanders who had been through years of war, were still not merely profoundly ignorant of, but with a totally wrong impression of, what the aeroplane could do and could not do to
help them. I submit that the situation to-day is even worse than it was then. As the war-experienced generation passes away in the units the situation will deteriorate unless something definite is done about it. May I briefly refer to naval and air co-operation training? As I say I know nothing about it directly but I am assured that between these two arms co-operation training to-day is on a fairly satisfactory basis. Whereas a few years ago it was very unsatisfactory, to-day it is working extremely well and to the satisfaction of both sides. The only caveat I would enter here is this—that it is very doubtful whether the scheme which is working so smoothly in peace-time would work equally well under the stress of war.
The general scheme for army and air co-operation training stands upon two legs. The first is the mutual secondment and mutual attachment of officers and the second is the work of Army co-operation squadrons. As to the first this scheme has become more or less a dead letter. I ventured to prod the Undersecretary of State for Air last week regarding his side of that question, and I now venture to prod the Financial Secretary to the War Office regarding his side of it. As to the other leg of the training scheme, the Army co-operation squadrons are doing invaluable work and are extremely efficient, so much so that in my submission, the efficiency of this training where it is available, tends to obscure the general lack of co-operation training. Because individual Army co-operation squadrons show most excellent understanding and co-ordination with the troops immediately around them we are led, in pointing to the splendid results achieved here and there, to forget the absence of any results elsewhere. Again it must be remembered that hitherto it has been possible in these squadrons to have the higher ranks filled by officers who have had experience, both in co-operation training and co-operation work during the War. That generation, however, is passing on to higher employment and when you get a new generation of what I may call for this purpose hard-boiled Air Force officers, brought up at Cranwell coming in to command these squadrons, I cannot see how in the present state of co-operation training that efficiency can be maintained except on paper.
Having inadequately surveyed the problem as I see it, I submit that we must, in seeking the real explanation of the present state of affairs, look higher and see whence comes the direction of the training, whence comes the training policy—because those who direct training in times of peace are those who will direct operations in times of war. I hope I shall be in order therefore in referring briefly to the training of the staff who in turn train the individuals. It may in this connection be that a dictum of my former chief Sir Ivor Maxse is still running in my mind:
Teach the teachers what to teach before they teach the Tommies.
You have to see how the staff itself is being taught its job in order to see that it is capable of teaching other people their jobs. The staff outlook on both sides is, I submit, at the present time wrong. The mental attitude both of the Army and the Air Force and also I think of the Navy, tends to envisage and to train for a war conducted by their own arm alone. That applies particularly to the Air Force. The rising generation has subconsciously been influenced to a tremendous extent by the most unfortunate and misguided propaganda of a certain section of the air Press. They have been told, "You are the arm of the future; in the next war you are going to run the show all by yourselves; grasp all you can get." They are growing up with a wrong mentality. In the result there is a failure on both sides to appreciate the potentialities of co-operation and co-operation training.
In order to see how this unfortunate state of affairs has arisen I ask the House to look at the lamentable history of inter-Service rivalry since the War. By 1916 it had become clear that the divided Air Service could not last. It was leading to duplication and waste and many other things. On 1st April, 1918, one Service was created, and rightly created. This, is where the trouble arose. That decision to create one Air Service was not loyally accepted by certain people. It is no use now going back to blame anybody. The people concerned are almost all out of the Service now but they poisoned the post-War atmosphere in relation to the building up of the Air Force. Lord Trenchard, to whom the country owes a debt which history alone will be able to estimate, when he built up the
post-War Air Force had to build with one hand while he defended his service with the other. To many the Air Force was regarded not as a valuable ally but as a cuckoo in the nest. This unfortunate state of affairs tended to colour the post-War policy and outlook of all the Services. In order to justify the new arm claims were made by it and especially on behalf of it, that were ill-advised, premature and could not be justified.
Particularly offensive and harmful was the arrogant attitude adopted by a not inconsiderable section of the air Press. It is a most remarkable thing, and one that we all have experience of in this House, that when people can convince themselves that their own interest and public policy coincide, they become most violent protagonists. Naturally the older Services resented these claims and were forced to resist them, and then, at a later stage, there came in that devastating word "substitution." On that one word "substitution" is based, I believe, the greater part of the trouble in co-operation in training to-day. The crux of the situation is that there is no machinery suitable for effecting a real compromise, a reasonable transition, or a reasonable degree of co-operation. A mandate has to be given either to the air or to the ground. The Iraq decision in 1922 was a case in point. It was perfectly correct in principle to make Iraq an Air Ministry responsibility, but it went too far, because there was no compromise possible, and it led to the most ridiculous sub rosa developments. It led to the Air Force building up, almost unofficially, its own ground forces, like armoured cars, machine guns, motor launches, and so on, instead of relying on the other Service. In his speech to-day the Financial Secretary said that if you have a naval base, you must have troops to protect it. I agree with that every time, but does he apply that also to an air base? I certainly should, but it is not being done to-day—a case of watertight compartments again. It was the failure to co-ordinate only two Services that led to the ghastly failure at Gallipoli. To-day we are failing under the easier conditions of peace, to co-ordinate the training of three Forces.
In putting forward these hackneyed observations, I am obviously making no claim whatever to originality. They have
been the subject of Committees and Debates for years past. There was the Weir-Mond Committee of 1922, there was the Salisbury Committee of 1923, there was the House of Lords Debate in June, 1926, and there was the House of Commons Debate in 1928. All these Committees and Debates have been inconclusive. They have all urged further co-ordination and co-operation, and they have all failed to make any practical suggestion that was acceptable to the Government. I submit that there are two specific reasons why they were all inconclusive. In the first place, it was always assumed that time would effect a cure, that time was tending to smooth over the difficulties and make co-operation better; and the second assumption was that time would act hand in hand with the work of the Committee of Imperial Defence. Both those expectations have been disappointed. I submit that they have both been disproved by the facts as they are to-day.
I was reading yesterday the speech of Lord Balfour made in the House of Lords in June, 1926. No man knew more than he about the Committee of Imperial Defence. It was his own creation, more than 30 years ago. In reading that speech yesterday afternoon, it was almost pitiable to note that great man's implicit confidence in the cure that would be effected by the Committee of Imperial Defence. Because all these Committees and every discussion hitherto have had these two wrong basic assumptions, they have never really got to the root of the matter, and I submit that the time is now ripe for further re-consideration. One new factor is operating to-day that should make any re-consideration by the Government of the problem of co-ordination and co-operation simpler, and that is that to-day, I think, everywhere, in politics and in the Services, the position of the Air Force as a separate and independent arm is accepted, so that the Air Force representatives advising the Government in a discussion would not be, as they always have been before, on the defensive.
I will, if I may, inflict two quotations on the House. I think Lord Thomson said a very wise thing in the House of Lords on the 16th June, 1926, when he said, referring to the three Services, that there was overlapping in function rather than in administration. On paper, in administration
things look comparatively good; it is only in functioning that they are found to be so inefficient. The second quotation is recommendation "F" of the Salisbury Report of 1922, but I am afraid I should be out of order in reading it, since it relates to the creation of a Ministry of Defence, so, although I am tempted, I will not risk your displeasure, Sir.
Having very scantily and inadequately surveyed the causes of the position as I see it to-day, I would like to call attention to this point: I have suggested that the training of the units is vitiated by the training of the staffs. Whence are these staffs derived? Why are they in the position that they are in to-day? The three Services originally derive their staff officers through their cadet training establishments—Woolwich and Sandhurst for the Army, Dartmouth for the Navy, and Cranwell for the Air Force. There are two points there, I think, worth mentioning. The first is to remind the House that the Navy catch them frightfully young; they are only 13½, and they are moulded to their own Service traditions from that day. I doubt if that later makes co-operation easier. The Cranwell cadet has been going into the Service now since 1921. He is a new factor. He has been brought up in a fresh tradition of a magnificent Service, and he goes into the Service with a tremendous idea of the importance of that arm. Again I doubt whether, under the present staff direction, it will make co-operation in training easier.
Later the officers of each Service who are going ultimately to direct operations go to their respective staff colleges, but I was surprised to realise how small the number in the staff colleges is. The Army, at both Camberley and Quetta, have 86 at Andover the Air Force Staff College has 22; and at Greenwich the Naval Staff College has 19. There are only 127 in the whole Service, all the arms, under training, and that raises this question: Are there to-day one or three theories of war, or one or three strategies of Imperial defence. He would be a bold man indeed who would dare to assert today that there was one Imperial strategy or war strategy being taught. Later, it is true, five per year per arm get into direct touch at the Imperial Defence College, but that is a drop in the
ocean. If you had to train for war in the immediate future the number of people available, who had been through the Imperial Defence College, would be negligible compared with the number required.
I have indulged in a great deal of purely destructive criticism, but I venture to put forward three points of, I hope, constructive policy in order to free myself from the charge of being purely destructive. I assume no authority, and I put these points forward with no finality. I submit that we shall never get effective co-operation in training between the Services until we have combined staff training of all three arms, with one staff college for all three arms. I do not suggest that the whole curriculum should be identical. A large part, I believe, would toe identical, but the rest would, at least, be parallel, not, as at present, definitely divergent. I am assured by many people whose opinion I value, with experience of all three arms, that this would not present any insuperable difficulties. For example, every year, or rather on every course, two Air Force officers are now sent to the Army Staff College at Camberlay, and within a fortnight or so they are perfectly able to take their place in the syndicates to which they are attached, and to carry on with the work. After all, staff training, like every other training, is mainly—I speak with humility in the presence of the eminent general who has just entered the Chamber—only common sense based on a certain amount of specialised knowledge. There is a great deal of hocus-pocus in any curriculum making. Every schoolmaster knows that, and the hon. Member for Caerphilly (Mr. Morgan Jones), were he here, would admit it.
After you have got, as I am sure you must have, combined staff training, and even before, you could start having regular interchange in staff and then later in command. In war you have either to have this interchange or to have chaos; there is no alternative. It is accepted in operation—and therefore why not in training?—that the arm with the major responsibility for the conduct of the war takes charge. At present that is ignored, and each side is totally separate. Were combined staff training in operation to-day, you would be able radically to modify that very grave defect in our Imperial defence—this matter of
spheres of influence, which, cutting the Army out of the whole areas and leaving the Air Force literally in the air, causes each arm to function without relation to the other arm. That could be modified. This is a long-term policy and one result ultimately would be to reduce that competition for jobs at the top which must inevitably influence any senior officer who is faced with the problem of giving away something to the other arm.
Lastly, among the lower regimental officer ranks there should be a regular interchange, with a fixed minimum laid down so that the scheme could not be torpedoed by the hostility of any local commanding officer. The primary object of my suggestion is efficiency, but it would also result in some measure of economy. It would not result in any spectacular economies—I do not think that is possible—but it would progressively tend towards efficiency and hence towards economy. May I give an illustration of the duplication which the absence of co-operation is apt to produce. Take the case of Egypt. What I am about to say can be checked by anybody who looks it up in the Army List. In Egypt there is a lieut.-General and 33 staff officers commanding approximately 10,000 troops. Alongside them, and like them, each with their own intelligence service, are an air vice-marshal and 58 staff officers to command six squadrons and some details. Surely that is madness and absurd. Economies could be made if the intelligence service alone were combined to study the same problems on the same grounds at the same time.
It is not the fault of the Services that this state of affairs has been allowed to develop. The fault really is that the political direction of the Services has not kept pace with their development. The scheme that was evolved more than 30 years ago for co-ordination is not up to modern requirements. The troubles which I have stated—I hope without exaggeration—will not cure themselves. They will only be cured if the Government tackle them. The Government are in a lucky position if they decide to tackle them, because they have three chiefs of the Services who enjoy in a remarkable degree the confidence not merely of their own arms but of the other arms. That is a factor that might not occur for many years, if ever again. The responsibility rests with the Prime
Minister as Chairman of the Imperial Defence Committee. I suggest that the task before the Government, luckily for them, is not so much to adjudicate between rival claims—conflicting claims in many cases—as to see that the Army becomes air-minded and the Air Force becomes ground-minded, because, if they can achieve those desiderata, I believe the rest will follow.

8.18 p.m.

Mr. PATRICK: I beg to second the Amendment.
I think that an Amendment drawn in rather wider terms would have appealed to many hon. Members, but reference to such a project as a Ministry of Defence would be out of order on this occasion, and I hope I shall not offend in that respect. Even the Amendment as it is drafted will, I hope, commend itself to many hon. Members and perhaps to the Government also. There is no need for me to enter into the technical defence of the Amendment after what my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) has said, but I should like to put one or two general considerations before the House. The Financial Secretary to the War Office in his singularly brilliant speech pointed out that this country needed what he called an all-purposes Army. With that we shall all be agreed, and still more shall we agree with him when he says that in the last resort it is not the machine or the gun that counts, but the men behind the machine and the gun. At the same time, it remains true that mechanisation is working the same changes, even greater changes, in the technique of war, as it is working in our whole economic and industrial system and perhaps in our social structure as well. If we are unlucky enough to see a war break out between two great industrialised Powers, whether or not we are concerned in it, we shall see something very different from anything that has gone before. I believe it will not merely be a question of gas bombs dropped on women and children in great cities and other rather more spectacular horrors which are pictured in the Press, but that we shall see very radical changes in the conduct of war between the combatants themselves.
Already I think the process of mechanisation has gone a long way
further than the general public realises. The year 1914 does not seem a very long time ago to many of us, and it is to me always odd to recall that in that year my regiment was equipped with two machine guns only, and one of them was almost contiuously out of action. In fact, in the whole of my division at that time, outside the rifle, sword and lance, we had only a dozen 13–pounder guns. To-day every unit seems to bristle with automatic weapons. The right hon. Member for North Cornwall Sir F. Acland) seems to have worked it out and to have arrived at a total of 42 per unit. The Financial Secretary said that the tank is a formidable weapon, but no one can say whether it will prevail over the offensive measures devised against it, or vice versa. Still, it is a considerable factor in the tactics, if not the strategy of to-day. What always seems to me of more importance than anything else, though less sensational, are the potentialities of short-wave wireless communication applied to air observation and communication between the air and the ground. I think it is reasonable to suppose that if it develops much further it will give commanders in future a power of control over their troops and an amount of tactical information and power of communication with each other of which their predecessors never dreamed. I do not think it is too fantastic to suggest that a commander's power of personal direction and control over initiative in the course of battle, which has been getting steadily less for a century or more, may be returning in another form because of wireless.
I do not want to deal with the progress of mechanisation, which I am not qualified to do, but the point I want to stress is that with that progress the words "land warfare" no longer imply merely warfare on the actual surface of the ground. In 1914 the armament of most of our ramshackle aeroplanes consisted of a pistol in the pocket of the observer, supposing he always carried it; and the same was true of the German aeroplanes. Now, however, low-flying aeroplanes probably directed by wireless from the ground, will with their enormous fire power and their bombs, surely be a definite factor in the fighting on the ground itself. Already aircraft are recognised as essential for artillery and other observation. As an instance
of modern development, I might remind the House that there is flying to-day the auto-gyro which has the power of remaining virtually stationery in the air and of landing in an insignificant space. The potetialities of that type of machine are very great, and I am glad to know that the War Office and the Air Ministry are taking an interest in it.
I think it is true to say that the dividing line between the air and the ground is becoming less and less distinct. Of course an air force will continue to have its own distinctive functions, such as long-range reconnaisanee or the bombing of distant targets, but at the same time it will have to take an increasingly large share in the work on the ground. It is not so much that the Air Force is encroaching on the sphere which was formerly entirely the Army's as the fact that the line of distinction between their two functions is becoming more and more blurred. If that is so, it is obvious that we must do everything possible to ensure the closest possible co-operation between our Army and our Air Force. The question arises: Is our present system the one best calculated to achieve that object, or does it rather tend, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggested, to what one might call "separatism"? Have we, in fact, failed to adapt our system in time to provide for the changes which have already taken place and will certainly take place in the future?
Those are highly technical questions, and it is rather incongruous that someone like myself, who has been very much a civilian for 14 years, should express opinions upon it, and I should not venture to do so but for the fact that I happen to have some small practical experience of the question during the War and twice since have had it brought vividly to my attention. During the War there was conspicuously little knowledge on the part of the Army as to what the Air Force could or could not do to help them, and the ignorance was mutual, because the same thing was true of the Air Force. I have no doubt that things are better in that respect since the War, but there cannot be too much mutual understanding and co-operation between those two arms of the Service.
I mentioned that I had come across the problem on two occasions since the War. The first occasion was in Egypt, where
I happened to spend a number of years not long ago. At the time of which I am speaking it was plain to the most uninstructed civilian that the problem of the defence of Egypt from external attack and of the defence of Palestine were one and the same thing and inseparable, and it was also quite clear—Japan was not a factor at that time—that if an attack was made on either of those two countries from without it must come from one of two directions—either by sea from the Mediterranean or by land from the direction of Asia Minor and Palestine. But the organisation of our defence forces seemed to me at the time to show no recognition of this somewhat elementary truth. The Army in Egypt was responsible for the defence of Egypt, as it still is, while in the case of Palestine, which of course is part of the same problem, responsibility lay with the Air Force.
My hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment has already pointed out that both the Army and the Air Force contain large staffs independent of each other, and I must say that an outsider would find it very hard to discern any very close touch between them. As to the Navy, which of course had a joint responsibility for defending Egypt if the attack came from the sea, they had their headquarters away in Malta, and for practical purposes were not represented at all. A civilian could be pardoned for asking himself at the time whether that was the best possible arrangement, the most economical and efficient one in time of peace, and best calculated to ensure the co-operation which would be essential in an emergency. If he asked himself that question he could give himself only one answer, and that would be "No." If those doubts were justified five or 10 years ago, how much more are they justified now, and how much more will they be justified in the future when mechanisation is further advanced?
The second occasion on which the same problem came before my notice was last autumn, during a visit I paid to the North-West Frontier of India. There, as everyone knows, both the Army and the Air Force are in a state of continual readiness for action, and very frequently take part in minor operations. One of those operations was just coming to an end when I reached Peshawar, an operation on an unusually large scale. A visitor like myself could hardly, I think,
fail to receive two impressions. One was that both the Army and the Air Force, in their respective spheres, were extraordinarily and highly efficient, but the other impression was what I can best describe as an extraordinary scepticism on the part of both as to the value of the role played by the other. It was virtually suggested by officers of each of the two arms that they could manage very well without the other one. I am not suggesting for a moment that there was anything in the nature of personal friction between them, a refusal to cooperate, or anything of that kind when it came to the point. That was not the case; but the psychological atmosphere I have endeavoured to suggest certainly did exist and does exist, and to a civilian it seems a most unfortunate thing.
It is perfectly obvious that in the smallest local operation the Army would be seriously handicapped without air observation, and equally obvious that the Air Force, though it can and does undertake very valuable preventive action at very small cost in money or in life, and though it could, if necessary, initiate on its own operations on a very large scale, would probably be powerless to bring such operations to a successful conclusion without the co-operation of the Army. It is perfectly plain to an ordinary person that the Army cannot do without the Air Force, and that the Air Force cannot do without the Army. Of course, the question whether the Army or the Air Force should enjoy ultimate responsibility for the defence of that frontier is one that has been argued at great length for many years, but, whatever decision may be taken, that seems to me a point of much less importance than that there should be very close co-operation between the two.
These two cases seem to be evidence that a closer understanding between the two arms, to put it no higher, is a very desirable and essential thing. If I might generalise for a moment it seems to me that what has happened is that mechanisation has, as it must, brought specialisation, and that specialisation, as it is always inclined to do, has brought about a certain narrowness of outlook, a tendency to concentrate on the trees and to forget about the wood. If that be so, it is really high time that we took some action about it, and it is
for that reason that I support very strongly the suggestion put forward by my hon. and gallant Friend who moved the Amendment. Joint staff training such as is advocated, which would not cut across those traditions which the Financial Secretary quoted with very great effect in his references to Woolwich and Sandhurst, would, in fact, achieve better mutual understanding, working, so to speak, from the top downwards. And I will add a further suggestion for the consideration of the Government which, I believe, would have the same effect working from the opposite direction, that is, from the bottom upwards. I realise that there may be administrative difficulties in the way, but I suggest that it should be laid down as a principle that as a matter of routine every young officer in the Army should, early in his service, be attached for a substantial period, say not less than six months, to an Air Force squadron; and in precisely the same way every young officer in the Air Force should be attached early to an appropriate unit in the Army for a like period. As I have said, I realise that there may be administrative difficulties, but they cannot be insuperable. A simple measure of that kind might very likely achieve more effective results than many a more spectacular measure might.

8.35 p.m.

Mr. ATTLEE: I congratulate the hon. and gallant Member who moved this Amendment, and his Secondersss, for their very interesting speeches upon a very important subject. Even perhaps such a mere amateur as myself may say one or two words without appearing too presumptuous. Whatever view we may take of the possibilities of war, or of peace and disarmament, we have to consider the effectiveness of whatever position we take up for defence, and the question of co-ordination of staff training is of the utmost importance. I only want to make one rather short point which will perhaps illustrate the matter. In the course of the discussion to-day an hon. and gallant Member suggested that the use of the cavalry was to clear the way for attacks. I thought that was rather heterodox, although it may be perfectly correct.

Lieut.-Colonel APPLIN: I said it was to clear the way by reconnoitring.

Mr. ATTLEE: I quite accept the correction, but the heresy remains. I do not think that nowadays we can effectively reconnoitre with cavalry in a world where there are large numbers of machine guns. The point remains. I do not think there is a very clear conception in the different branches of the Service of the function of those services. Let us take the wording of this Amendment. It suggests that the function of the Navy and of the Air Force is communications and co-operation for military operations. That may be so. On the other hand it may be that the function of the Army and the Navy is merely to facilitate air operations. It is quite possible and indeed probable that in each of the various Services you may have a totally different doctrine being taught. When I was temporarily in the Army, we were told that the general doctrine of fighting and the object of bringing up guns, munitions and everything else, was, from the infantryman's point of view to get one infantryman with a bayonet up against another infantryman with a bayonet. One of the greatest objectives was to bring man to man with a piece of steel.
When you look at it like that it seems rather crude. From the cavalry point of view, the man with the bayonet was only there to enable the cavalry to go through. For a very long time the cavalry were waiting to go through. I do not know what would have happened if they had done so. The doctrine remained, and it is quite possible that it still survives. The Army will think of the Air Force as a means for enabling the cavalry to go through; I should doubt whether that is true to-day. In the same way, the Navy perhaps think of the Air Force as mainly a scouting force in order to allow the Navy to get through to its objective. It may be as a matter of fact that the principal function of the Navy is to enable the Air Force to get through. I merely throw out those suggestions as to the kind of thing which may happen if you do not get co-ordination of the training of the officers of various forces, so that they understand the capabilities of those forces.
I thought that the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Patrick) was right to suggest that you cannot really get co-operation by some sort of little link at the top. Very few officers are being trained
specially for staff work, and when they have gone through that training they are sent off somewhere where they will have no opportunity, or only a very scanty one, of making use of what they have learned. That is all in the old tradition, according to which if a man understands motors he has to look after the mules. It is quite time that that was stopped. The hon. Member may be wrong as to the possibility of having only one staff college, but I think he was right in suggesting that whatever you do in these matters you must see that officers of all the Services have real and practical opportunities of understanding the points of view of others.
The matter is important also when one discusses disarmament and security problems. On every discussion of armaments and disarmament the experts in the various Services have not really understood the position of the others, and you have what occurred at the Disarmament Conference: everybody is willing to scrap the other Services. Again, I think the hon. Member was quite right in saying that there is a danger, but I do not agree that it is due, as the Financial Secretary suggested, to increasing specialisation. The narrowing of the possibilities was there before, and I do not know whether it is just because of mechanisation. I should think that the mechanisation of the Services would tend to bring them together, and that the separation of ideas would tend to be less than when there was a greater separation of the Army and Navy. I am glad that there is a chance of ventilating this question.

8.43 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: We ought to congratulate both the Mover and Seconder on having brought forward this subject and for the ingenious manner in which they have drafted their Amendment. If we cannot go as far as we should like on the Amendment, we can go quite a long way. I congratulate them also upon trying to do something which is new. They must know already that in this country if you advocate anything which is new you are up against a very great difficulty, especially when you are trying to shift three of the most powerful Government offices that exist. That is the first point. We have also had an exhibition of an almost revolutionary
change; we have heard the Leader of the Opposition make a speech of sound common sense within 10 minutes. That is a most astounding thing and indeed is very shocking. I hope, however, that it will be repeated not only from that bench but from the benches of the Government.
I maintain that to get any further with the ideal which is in this Amendment it is necessary to start at the top. There must be a political sense of unity between the three Services which can go lower down, and actually to the unit. Year after year I have pleaded from my place in this House for closer co-operation between the Services, and I have always said that the first thing to do was to be able to debate at one time the expense to which we were put for our defence Services. We have never been allowed to do that. The Lord President promised, or tried to promise, that we should be able to do it this year, but, although I know his endeavours were sincere, he was soundly defeated by his Whips. He did say that co-ordination should take place by virtue of an investigation, I think, of the three Services through the Committee of Imperial Defence. On this particular question the other day Lord Londonderry gave a very detailed description of what actually occurred in the distribution of money to the various Services—a most involved, technical and detailed description; but yet the Lord President only the other day said that the idea of the Committee of Imperial Defence investigating this question was a very excellent one, and he would see it tried out. It is very difficult to know what really occurs—whether this is a new idea which the Lord President said would happen in the future, or whether Lord Londonderry has been drawing on his imagination. I cannot get at the bottom of it.
From the technical point of view of co-ordination, we have to remember that it is only more or less recently that a general was not also in command of the Fleet. It sounds very absurd in these days that a general should take command of the Fleet, but it is not so foolish as one might think. I am one of those who believe that generals are born, and not made, and that when you have been for a very long time a regimental officer you are quite incapable of being an efficient general. Every original idea has been
taken out of your head, and you cannot think of anything new that the other general does not also know. A famous wit once said of generals that the only reason why a general ever wins a war is that he has a general against him; and there is a lot of sound truth in that. I think it might well be that interchange between the Services might introduce such surprising tactics as would anyhow deceive the enemy; but that is never indulged in in modern warfare.
I have come to the conclusion that in this life you never get altogether what you want, and that, consequently, it is always best to ask for much more than is ever possible. Therefore, to-night I plead for one Service, and one Service only—in other words, for the total disappearance of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and for some new service altogether. Really, that is not so absurd as it sounds. After all, in the various Services, we find the Navy operating many times on land as soldiers; we find the Air Force running a fleet of vessels, even around our shores here; we find the Army operating inland water transport; we find the Air Force operating tanks, and generally behaving as soldiers. All these things in the old days used to be separated definitely as belonging to one Service or another. In the old days there were an Army and a Navy, but now that the Air has come in there is a merging between all the Services which is really bringing the whole thing into one.
Taking the Army, it may be said that the private soldier in the tank corps and the private soldier in the cavalry are the same, but they are not at all the same. The one is a mechanic, and the other a groom. There is an enormous difference in mentality and in every way between them, and they are not in any way interchangeable, any more than would be an actual sailor and an actual soldier. I believe that the day is coming—probably it will not be in our time—when we shall have, in order to get real economy in defence, to have only one Service. Already we notice a regrettable drift towards earmarking aircraft to one Service and not to the whole. We have the Army Co-operation Squadrons earmarked for the Army, and we have the Fleet Air Arm earmarked for the Navy, besides our Royal Air Force. I think it is admitted that you can never win a
war unless you win in the air first. I do not say that aircraft will ever win a war, but you can never win one unless you win in the air first, and I do not see in the present arrangement any organisation whereby every aircraft that you possess nationally would be put into the first clash. It would be pathetic, I think, if all aircraft earmarked for the Navy during an attack on London quietly sat down by the Fleet, which, from the point of view of the defence of London, might be a lot of seaweed, for it could not do any good until the first clash in the air was over. Consequently I plead now for this consideration of one Service. Mark Twain once made a claim about a certain lake, that the water was so clear you could see a sixpence at a depth of 50 feet, and, when people contradicted him, he slowly gave away his ground until finally he said, "Well, anyhow, you could see a £5 note floating on the top." I do not give away my point as much as that, but I believe that one Service as a whole would solve a lot of our difficulties. It would do away with duplication of staff, would make for immense economy, and would introduce what really would be Imperial defence, without the name which apparently is such a difficult thing for political minds to swallow.

8.52 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel MUIRHEAD: We find it so natural to discuss questions of co-operation between the various Services that I think we lose sight of the difficulties that there used to be, not very long ago, in getting co-operation even within the ranks of one Service itself. The Hartington Commission, some 40 years ago, made a suggestion that there should be one Chief of the Staff in the Army. That did not meet with approval. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's remark upon that proposal was this:
We have no room for general military policy, because we have no designs against our neighbours.
There could hardly be more fallacious reasoning than the idea that clear thinking makes for offensiveness, and muddled thinking makes for peace. On the contrary, we have drifted into far more wars by muddled thinking than we have ever started by thinking clearly. I should like to treat this question, though it may sound platitudinous to say so, in the light of actual war itself, because, however much we may regret the possibility
of war, and however little we may desire it, all these Service questions have to be tested in the light of war itself. Many schemes of organisation may appear all right in time of peace, and may work all right in time of peace, but they will not stand the test of war itself, and particularly of that very difficult period when one passes from a state of peace to a state of war—that time at which, as Sir William Robertson truly said, chickens come home remoselessly to roost.
The question of co-operation between the Services seems to me to fall into three categories; and, if I mention those categories, I assure you, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it is not for the purpose of trying to steal a march and widen the scope of the discussion, but in order to show why I think the Mover of the Amendment was so wise in choosing his ground. You can strive for better co-operation between the Services in the realm of administration and Parliamentary responsibility; you can strive for it in the realm of training, plans and operations; and you can strive for it by seeing how you can co-ordinate the requirements of the Services, treated as one block, with their civilian counterpart—that type of work which is being done so extensively and admirably by the Committee of Imperial Defence.
It seemed to me that the Mover of the Amendment was quite right in fixing on the question of co-operation in the realm of training, and perhaps I might add plans and operations, because you cannot divorce training from plans and operations. It seems to me that it is in that sphere of co-operation that the next most suitable step that we ought to take really lies. Those people who want to start grandiose schemes of coordinating administrative services have to remember that we saw increasingly, as the last War went on, administrative functions constantly off-loaded and put outside the realm of the Service Departments altogether. On what one might call the general staff side, there was a contrary movement until one finally got perhaps to the biggest direction of the War, which was Marshal Foch as Generalissimo on the Western Front, where you had direction concentrated in the hands of one man assisted by a comparatively small staff.
I feel that you cannot really consider training simply as training. You cannot consider it merely by itself. You must consider it in relation to the structure into which the trained product is ultimately to fit, and a good deal of trouble in the realm of training and education in civilian life is because one is apt to think of training and education Tather as a thing by itself and not consider sufficiently closely the structure in which the product is ultimately to operate. We have made, in the course of the past few years, a great deal of advance in the realm of Service co-operation. I do not want anyone to think that I am oblivious of that or am in any way trying to decry the efforts which have been made, I believe very successfully. There is the Chiefs of the Staff Committee, there is the expanded and extended Committee of Imperial Defence, and we have done a very great deal towards the co-operation of training between the actual officers and the units of the various Services themselves. I myself have had perhaps painful experience of that. I remember being extremely sick when co-operating with the sister Service on board a destroyer, and I should like to pay a tribute to the manners of the sister Service on that occasion. When I was, no doubt, looking my worst, they involved my side of the ship in the density of a smoke screen. I only mention that personal incident to show that I myself have had some experience in that form of co-operation.
I do not want in any way to try to suggest that we ought to make at once a variety of sweeping changes. I do not think that is the best way to proceed. But there is one respect in particular in which I think the time is now ripe for a move forward. We have the Chiefs of the Staff Committee. They form what the Salisbury Committee called a super-chief of the staff in commission. How long it will be before we evolve a man who can efficiently be a super-chief of the staff in his own person I do not profess to forecast, but, although those three people are considering the training, the plans and the operation of the Army in a corporate capacity, they cannot help still remaining three people drawn from the three separate Services, and exactly the same is the case with their immediate subordinates who also, no doubt, meet together to consider the
same questions that their immediate superiors are considering.
I think the next step should be the creation of a small combined staff as such, not simply a meeting ground for a few people drawn from the respective Services, but actually a small staff functioning continually and thinking continually as a combined staff. It may not seem a very great difference to many people from what is actually going on at present, but I believe in essence there is a really big and important difference, because at the moment there is no getting away from the fact that we have co-operation between the three Services. Co-operation is better than nothing, but to my mind there are distinct limits to it. Co-operation very often works satisfactorily in peace, but it does not work equally satisfactorily in war, where you are faced with events of great rapidity, and where, above everything, you are bound to he faced with events which have been very largely, if not entirely, unforeseen. Lord Kitchener, in his memorandum on the Defence of Australia before the War, wrote this passage:
If plans and essential preparations have been deferred till an emergency arises, it will be found too late to act, because the strain of passing from peace to war will entirely absorb the energies of all engaged even when every possible contingency has been foreseen.
That is a very pregnant statement. It is paradoxical to say that the one thing that can be foreseen about any future war is that something unforeseen will occur, and it is the difficulty of dealing with those unforeseen circumstances which has led, perhaps, to many of the greatest mistakes and greatest disasters in war.
May I give one instance which is one of the most interesting and one of some minor personal interest to myself. Very early in the last war Lord Kitchener suddenly realised that London was threatened by air attack and that there was no provision for London's defence. He, accordingly, asked the right hon. Member for Epping (Mr. Churchill), who was then First Lord of the Admiralty, if he would undertake the air defence of London. To this the First Lord agreed. He very quickly saw that what he had to do was to establish an offensive air base,
not in this country but on the shores of the Continent. He proceeded to do it in the region of Dunkirk. He then found—students of military history know this process so well—that the air base had to be defended. The defence of the air base at Dunkirk became involved very quickly with a movement advocated by General Joffre for trying to create a force on the shores of the Continent with a view to striking South at the communications of the German Army. Accordingly a yeomanry regiment and marines were sent to Dunkirk. It ended up with this almost unprecedented situation, that a British mounted regiment came into action 50 miles inland under the orders of the Admiralty by what the First Lord called a unmistakable sequence of events connecting up with the air defence of London. I was very interested indeed when my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wallasey (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon) talked about Generals commanding fleets and vice versa. If he can find anything more tangled up than that in military history, I shall be glad if he will tell me about it.
Then one had that instance, which is perhaps rather threadbare, of the Dardanelles. I am not going to discuss whether that was a good or a bad plan, but it seems to me that the real reason why it failed was not necessarily because it was a bad plan, but because the timing of the operation was wrong. It seemed to one rather like a motor car engine which runs but the timing is wrong, and the timing was wrong because one had to rely on co-operation and not on central direction. That brings out one of the dangers to which co-operation is liable in war. In peace time we are always training, and we are nearly always training to meet difficulties which we had to meet in the last War. What we have really to attempt is to train to meet the difficulties which we think we are likely to meet in the next war, and particularly to meet unforeseen difficulties. It is clear that if you cannot foresee a thing in detail you cannot train in detail how to meet it.
What I desire to see as the nearest possible thing to that, is the setting up of some staff, some organisation within whose orbit anything unforeseen connected with the services will naturally fall. That is why I favour the creation of a small definitely combined staff, named and trained and thinking as such rather
than relying on continued co-operation as between members of the different services. If you had a staff like that, anything which was unforeseen, like the difficulty about the old defences of London, or anything about that which may come to pass in the next war, would naturally fall within the orbit of this particular staff. It is much easier, quicker, and much more effective for a staff of that description to disperse the tasks for meeting unforeseen contingencies to the respective services, rather than to rely on the respective services to come together and co-ordinate with perfect timing for the meeting.
We have in existence now, and have had for some years, the Imperial Defence College, a very valuable institution. It is extremely encouraging to this kind of service co-operation to read in the Estimates of the various services the explanatory note of the three Estimates with regard to that case. They do not follow quite identically. One has the service identity so strong. It is a case of "I must put the language a little different from the way the Navy or Air Force put it." But there is a great unity of thought. I think that, as long as the Imperial Defence College merely remains, so to speak, a college of service co-operation, its real value will be limited. One has to try, by having the combined staff which I have tried to outline—it need not be a big one—to create a particular structure into which the real trained product of the Imperial Defence College ought to fit for the purpose of wider training and plans, and for the purpose of wider operations. Mr. Burke said in this House:
I have no faith in any scheme of war in which the execution is divorced from the plan.
That is a very wise saying. I have no faith in any scheme of war in which the education or the training is divorced from the method of execution. It is because I believe that a small combined staff such as I have outlined will be, and ought to be, the natural collorary to the educational establishment performed by the Imperial Defence College, that I wish to make the advocacy of that combined staff my contribution to this discussion to-night.

9.9 p.m.

Commander MARSDEN: I certainly welcome the Amendment which was so ably moved by the right hon. and gallant
Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James), and to, my mind what he intended was so very clear that I have been rather led away by the subsequent arguments, feeling that hon. Members have been taking the matter away from what was intended. I regard this Amendment in this way: In all forms of co-operation there are two points of view. One is the general direction and general order that such and such an operation, and such and such an enterprise may take place. That, generally speaking, will not be decided by professional soldiers and sailors. Their advice may be disregarded as it was disregarded frequently in the last War. Those decisions will be taken by the political party in power.
I welcome this Amendment as I understood that it was for the closer co-ordination and co-operation of the officers who would actually work out the details of every operation. My hon. Friend nod his head. Out of all the bad points of the last War, there was one good point which I could hold up as an example, a position between the two Services which was known, anticipated and planned for a long time, and that was the transport of the original Expeditionary Force, an evolution which was carried out with great speed, efficiency and secrecy, so much so that in the Grand Fleet we did not have any knowledge until late in September that an Expeditionary Force had even landed in France. The first indication I had of its landing was hearing of the death of General Grierson over the wireless. I thought, "If he has died in France that is where the fighting is."
Working on those lines we again carried through the transport in a wonderful manner; so much so that between Dover and the Continental ports, throughout the whole of the War, with all those millions of soldiers, sailors, airmen, generals, Ministers, and people of every description carried under Admiralty direction, not one solitary life was lost. That was a great feat. That was cooperation and co-ordination between the two Services, and that was the right way to work. But, as my right hon. Friend said, at that time the great cry was efficiency. Economy did not matter. In fact, the more money you could spend the bigger man they thought you were. That was all right. But now efficiency is necessary.
If details are necessary I can produce the most minute details. When a transport takes soldiers overseas, the soldiers have to shave with cold water. I do not know whether they like it. But if sailors come on board, hot water has to be provided. Yet if sailors are on board and they leave the transport the hot water arrangement put in for their benefit has to be taken out before the soldiers come on board. Throughout the cabins and various places where the men lived, and even in the lavatories, there are different names used by the sailors. All the ship has to be gone through and new labels put on everything. If the House wants details, I will provide the details. I think that even in these things some closer co-operation certainly might make for economy. This House is unanimous about the need for closer co-operation.
I am not in a position to speak from the military side. I speak admittedly for the Navy, and if I were to bring in the Air, I fear that it would put me out of order. It does not matter what dimensions we work in. The hon. and gallant Member for Wallasey (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon) has visions of the time when there will be one Service. That may be, but I leave that to him and H. G. Wells between them. I do not think that it is going to be in our time. But while we have wars or rumours of war, let us see to that any expedition we have to undertake may be better carried out than some of those in the past. I know that our enemies frequently gnashed their teeth because their carefully-calculated plans were upset by our rather rule-of-thumb methods. But they were only upset by the heroic deeds of our soldiers and sailors after teriffic bloodshed. To get efficiency on these points is to bring about economy in money and in human life. Anything I can say in support of this Amendment which will ensure, that in future operations co-operation and co-ordination will be carried out better than in the past, I am glad to say.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. DUFF COOPER: The hon. Member for North Battersea (Commander Mars-den) has expressed the hope that any operation in which we may be engaged in the future may be carried out with greater co-operation and greater efficiency than in the past. Like other hon. and
gallant Members who took part in such operations he has found a great deal to criticise. While echoing his view and repeating his wish, I should like to add to it the hope—remembering that other nations have had the same kind of complaints to make of their Services—that all future operations will be as victorious as ours have been in the past. No one will quarrel with my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Wing-Commander James) for bringing forward his Motion. I think he has done a public service in enabling it to be discussed tonight. It was a difficult Motion for him to draft and I am sure that it has been a difficult Motion for hon. Members to discuss, and also a difficult Motion upon which Mr. Deputy-Speaker could give his Ruling as to whether hon. Members were in order or not. It has, however, enabled hon. Members to say a great deal of general interest and to put forward suggestions which were well worth hearing and certainly needed to be discussed.
I have been put in a very difficult position in regard to answering. Hon. Members have been able to go from one Service to another. They could speak one moment about the Navy and if they saw you, Sir, becoming restless in your Chair, they could rapidly go back to the Army. Then they could turn to the Air Force, and before they could be called to order they could say something again about the Army. It is impossible for me to offer an adequate reply to the discussion. It is impossible for any Minister speaking for one Service only to reply to a Debate the whole point of which has been an insistence upon the necessity of the three Services combining together, and pointing out the deficiency or the efficiency of one Service or another. I can assure hon. Members that although this matter has not occupied nearly as much attention as perhaps it should have done, owing to the rules of order, it has not been absent from the minds of those who are responsible for the direction and the policy of the three Departments. We are doing all that we can to promote cooperation between the Services, but I am prepared to admit that it is possible for us to do more, and I hope that we shall do more.
I am sure that the chiefs of staff of the three great Services are working together
very harmoniously. As the House is aware, we have a system whereby two members representing each Service attend the annual course at the staff colleges of the other Services. For instance, two members of the Army go to the Naval Staff College, two members of the Navy go to the Army Staff College, and two members of the Air Force go to the Army and Naval Staff Colleges, and so on. It may be said that that is inadequate but, at any rate, it is a beginning, and it shows that we are conscious of the need of greater co-operation. Then there is the Royal Air Force School of Army Cooperation at Old Sarum, which is attended by both Air Force officers and Army officers. This year we have a plan for extensive operations which are to take place in the summer on the coast of Yorkshire. It will be a combined operation on a large scale in which a skeleton Division of the Army will operate, together with the Home Fleet and four or five squadrons of the Royal Air Force. That shows that we are conscious of the need of what has been pressed upon us this evening.
The hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough and the hon. Member for Tavistock (Mr. Patrick), whose speech I was unable to hear, referred to their War experiences in this matter. I am prepared to agree with them that during the War there was in the minds of some officers in the Army a great lack of appreciation of the need and the importance of the Air arm, but I do not think that that feeling exists any longer. One hon. and gallant Member suggested that those who took part in the War and learned those lessons are gradually disappearing and that a new generation may be growing up which believes in the one arm. On the contrary, I think that the old generation of officers who believe in one arm only is passing away. Those who were middle aged when the War broke out in 1914 did regard aeroplanes as rather dangerous toys which would never take a real part in warfare. There was that school of thought among the older officers and I have no doubt that the hon. and gallant Member for Wellingborough and the hon. Member for Tavistock both came up against that type of elderly officer, who thought that the Air Force was something that was butting in and rather spoiling the War.
That sort of thing does not exist to-day. There is throughout the Army a tremendous appreciation of the importance of the Air Force and a great desire to co-operate with it and to do everything to understand it.
I was unfortunate in not hearing the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Wallasey (Lieut.-Colonel Moore-Brabazon). He makes short speeches and I think he is a model for this House in saying more than almost any other Member in less time. He brought forward this evening a suggestion which the hon. and gallant Member for North Battersea thought might be left to him and Mr. H. G. Wells. At any rate, he thought that it was a matter which demanded the attention of a first-rate brain.

Lieut.-Colonel MOORE-BRABAZON: I suppose the Financial Secretary is right in making fun of me for having made the suggestion, but I cannot help reminding him that I took a deputation to the War Office and offered to lend them aeroplanes for their manoeuvres and I was sent away, being told that aeroplanes were no good for war.

Mr. COOPER: I can assure my hon. and gallant Friend that I had not the slightest intention of making fun of him. I think his suggestion is an extremely interesting one. It has gone through my mind and I have discussed it in private again and again. Whether it is practicable or not is another question. Certainly it is a question which cannot be thrashed out on the Floor of the House, and it is one upon which it is impossible for me as Financial Secretary to offer an opinion. I recognise the importance and value of the suggestion. I can believe that in the past he may have had the unfortunate experience to which he has referred, but things have changed, and I am sure that any such offer would not be met in that way if he came to the War Office to-day.
The hon. and gallant Member for Wells (Major Muirhead) made an extremely interesting suggestion as to the appointment of a small combined staff to coordinate the activities of the three Services. That is a suggestion which deserves the publicity which I hope it will get. Obviously, it would do a great deal towards solving difficulties and perhaps assisting in the endeavour to promote in-
creased co-operation, which we all desire. But whether it would solve the problems which the hon. and gallant Member for North Battersea came up against when transporting soldiers at sea, or whether it could arrange that hot water should be provided for soldiers as well as sailors—as a representative of the junior Service I was horrified to hear the revelation that was made on this subject by the hon. and gallant Member—I cannot say. At any rate it is a question which is worth hearing, and I do not think that the House will criticise me if I do not make a longer reply to the speeches that have been made. It is impossible for me to deal with them adequately; it would be impossible for the Minister of any one Department to deal with them adequately. I am certain that my hon. and gallant Friend will not want to press this Amendment to a Division, because, if ever there was an Amendment with which the House was in general agreement, it is that the matter needs further investigation.

Main Question again proposed.

9.26 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel APPLIN: I am reminded of the words of Juvenal: "Post festum venire miserum est." In other words, I have been waiting a great many hours to take part in this Debate. I wish to bring a serious subject before the House, and I do not intend to take more than 10 minutes, unless it takes me an extra minute to mount my charger, draw my sword and annihilate the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) in regard to the cavalry question.
I have searched in vain through the Army Estimates and the Paper issued with them for anything with regard to our Expeditionary Force. As the strength of an Army, a Navy or an Air Force must depend entirely on what its use is to be, and that use can only be decided by the Government, I should like to ask the Financial Secretary to tell us where this Expeditionary Force, which should carry out the Treaty of Locarno if ordered by the Government, appears in the Estimates. I do not see more than one division which could he mobilised and sent overseas. Indeed, the Estimates show
that the regiments are so arranged that one battalion is at home and one is in India. In fact, there are fewer battalions at home than there are in India. There appears, therefore, to be no Expeditionary Force shown in the Estimates, and it is a matter of vital importance to this country to know whether we can carry out our Treaty; whether we have an Expeditionary Force or not.
The second point which I wish to bring forward is one of vital importance to any Army, such as ours, which is reduced to the lowest possible strength, to carry out what may be called purely garrison duty. That is the question of machine guns. When the War broke out there were two machine guns to each battalion. The crews were entirely untrained for modern war; they know how to fire their guns and that was about all. In spite of the advice of those who had studied machine guns before the War, it was thought that it would be improper to employ machine guns except with the regiments. In or soon after the first year of the War we decided that we must have machine guns co-ordinated and trained into one practical policy, and the result was the formation of the great machine-gun training centre at Grant-ham and of the Machine Gun Corps, of which His Majesty the King was Colonel-in-Chief. That corps is only remembered now by a statue, which I believe has caused a certain amount of offence to my hon. Friends below me; it is a statue of David, the youth with the sling who slew the giant, and under it are written the words:
Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands.
Those words might be remembered by the War Office, because they are the absolute essence of the truth. During the War I had the honour to command 280 machine guns at the Battle of Messines. I opened fire over the heads of the infantry; the guns were ordered not to take up the barrage until my guns had ceased. The papers announced afterwards that the trenches had been found full of German dead, all shot through the head and chest by bullets. No bullets had been fired except by machine guns. I do not want to go into that matter now, but I wish to ask whether we cannot double, treble, or quadruple our force of machine guns by organising and training that Machine-Gun Corps on one
principle, so that they can be used as they were in the Great War and made efficient in the use of that most powerful weapon.
One word with regard to the cavalry and the necessity for retaining it. I am sure that my hon. Friend cannot support his argument that horses are useless in war because he has seen them blown to pieces by guns. As far as I know, men are blown to pieces by guns, but we do not say that they are useless. Tanks are blown to pieces with the people inside them, but we do not say that tanks are useless. We should never have entered into Jerusalem or destroyed the Turkish Army in Palestine if it had not been for the cavalry. Thousands of Germans used to hold up their hands to a mere handful of cavalry. It is, of course, well known that we cannot break through barbed wire, as the hon. Member for Limehouse (Mr. Attlee) said, but when the enemy are defeated and retiring you cannot complete your victory without cavalry.

Mr. TINKER: We could have blown Jerusalem up long before it was taken if we had desired. Because it would then have been destroyed altogether, and it was an old city, we did not attempt to do so.

Lieut.-Colonel APPLIN: I do not mean for a moment that we took Jerusalem with cavalry. The great cavalry general, in fact, honoured the city by dismounting and going in on foot. I was speaking of the actions in the open that led up to the taking of Jerusalem. I can give another instance from Mesopotamia: my own Tegiment, an Indian cavalry regiment, on one occasion practically saved the day by dismounting, manning trenches and holding up the whole Turkish Army at the battle of Eamadic. The colonel of the regiment was killed in the battle fighting on foot. Cavalry are as necessary to-day as they have ever been; the men and the horses are always necessary in war if they are properly used. One further matter. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman and all those hon. Members sitting below him desire above everything else to do away with all these mechanical means of causing death. We are to do away with the aeroplane—

Mr. TINKER: I did not say that.

Lieut.-Colonel APPLIN: That is the general policy now, to do away with areoplanes; to have a small Air Force-possibly in the hands of the League of Nations; to disarm the nations of the world and do away with lethal weapons. When that comes about, we will dominate the plains of Europe with a few thousand horsemen armed with swords. I ask the Financial Secretary to consider these two points, the question of the Expeditionary Force and the restoration of the machine gun corps. He himself spoke of the esprit de corps of this branch of the Service. I dine in a little restaurant in the City where no less than 400 old machine gunners and their officers meet together, and drink to the health of the old corps.

9.36 p.m.

Mr. JANNER: I do not propose to detain the House very long. I had intended to move a Motion in respect of the Army vocational training centres, which I think hon. Members will agree are institutions which should be encouraged as they are doing remarkably good work. The idea of the Army vocational training centre is to see that the individual who has come to the end of his period of service in the Army is given an opportunity of learning a trade so that he may be fitted for ordinary civilian life when he leaves the Array. Already three centres have been instituted where a time-serving soldier can take such a course to fit himself for civilian work. If there is one thing that is important it is to see that the man who is serving in the Army shall have an opportunity of fitting himself for civilian life so that even in these difficult times he can take his place amongst his fellow men in performing such ordinary employment as is available, and doing it without being ousted by the additional experience and capacity of other members of the population. It is of the utmost importance that men should be encouraged to take advantage of the vocational training centre. Civilian methods are adopted in these centres. The man is taken as far as he can be away from army routine and is given an opportunity of being trained in civilian arts and crafts in an atmosphere which enables him to lose to some extent such sense of difference as may exist, if he
were suddenly thrown on the ordinary labour market after having served in the Army.
When a student comes to the centre he is given a month or two of preliminary training and then the opportunity of doing something practical. He is controlled and guided by instructors who are in the main, I believe almost entirely, civilian instructors. He is taught, if he desires to become a builder, to erect buildings himself. In the course of his training he is given opportunities of doing the whole of the work, examining it from its commencement, through the estimating stage, choosing the materials, and ultimately producing the completed article himself. An employment bureau is also established in order that he may later on find opportunities for obtaining employment when he has left the centre. The one centre, Aldershot, which I have had the privilege of visiting and which much impressed me indicated that the men were happy and were progressing very rapidly in the work that was being taught them, and were becoming very efficient indeed. My purpose in putting my Motion down was to make the House acquainted, in the first instance, with the fact that a considerable amount of interest is being taken by the men in this work, and that when they leave these centres they are efficient in the various duties they are trained to perform. But I want, more particularly, to ask whether it is not possible for a larger number of men to be given an opportunity of taking advantage of these courses. I rather gather that the institutions which exist already are not full the whole of the year, and I am not surprised because, although the men are anxious to avail themselves of the opportunity of being trained in this manner, there are difficulties in the way which I should like to see removed, and removed as rapidly as possible.
In reply to a question which I put to the Financial Secretary I was informed that the fees for students in these Army vocational centres fluctuated according to rank; and were, for a lance-corporal and private 5s. a week, for a lance-sergeant and corporals 6s. a week, for a staff sergeant and sergeant 7s. a week, for a warrant officer, 2nd class, 8s. 6d., and for a warrant officer, 1st class, 10s. a week.
In my view these fees are too high. The bulk of these trainees come from the infantry, and the minimum rate of pay in the lower ranks of the Army are, for a private 3s. a day, a lance-corporal 3s. 9d. a day, and a corporal 4s. 9d. a day. I believe that the rates for cavalry and artillery are much about the same. It must be clear that the most that an infantryman can draw is one guinea per week, and out of this he has to pay for his washing, for cleaning materials, for hair cutting, barrack damage charges and sports subscriptions. An addition of 6s. for vocational training hits the man heavily indeed, and in the case of a married man who is off the strength—and I believe there are large numbers of them who stand in need of a job when they leave the Service as much as anyone—it is quite impossible for them to consider the question of taking up this course. When the cuts in pay were made there was no cut in the fees charged. I am not suggesting that no fees should be charged. I believe that a small fee is in itself an inducement for the men who are really anxious to do so to take advantage of these opportunities and that it prevents others who might want to go in for the purpose of slacking. But in my view it should be a reasonable fee which will reasonably enable the person who wants to take advantage of the training to do so.
In regard to the extension of the period to some extent beyond the term of service in the Army, could we be assured that opportunities would be given for a longer period than six months to enable a person to remain on? I do not mean cutting off this portion when he should be following his ordinary Army training but in addition to the Army training period one to enable a man to learn a trade for a further period. Then there is the question of tools. When a man leaves the Army vocational training centre he leaves having paid the amount of money charged and has no tools with which to seek employment. I do not think it would be a tremendous expense if an allowance were made so as to enable the men to have those tools. When they go straight into the ranks of labour their prospect of employment are naturally reduced, without them. The married men in my view find it almost impossible to avail themselves of the opportunities afforded to the single
men particularly if they live outside the barracks. Could not some further concession be made in their case? I understand that according to regulations a man who is a tradesman in the Army is not given an opportunity to go to an Army vocational training centre, but undoubtedly while there are some trades pursued in the ordinary course of Army training which will be useful to an individual when he leaves the Army for the purpose of obtaining ordinary civilian employment, there are a number which come within the meaning of the term "trades" for this purpose which would not suit a man in ordinary civilian life.
Take the case of a clerk in the Army. He may have no commercial experience at all, and it is essential before he is thrown into the ordinary market that he should be put upon a footing which is at least equal as far as possible to the footing of an ordinary clerk in civilian life. I do not think the amount that would be involved in making these improvements would be a very heavy one. At the present time some 2,340 men are trained in the centres at costs of about £10 per head, taking into consideration the returns for any of the products of the centres. I do not think any Member of the House regards the fitting of an individual to follow a civilian pursuit by means of these centres at the rate of £10 per head as excessive. The expenditure of a few more pounds in the manner I have suggested would assist many more men to find employment when they leave the Army and feel happier in their civilian state. I appeal to the Financial Secretary to assist the men who are in the Army, the time serving men, to make themselves fitted for civilian occupations by granting these points.

9.50 p.m.

Brigadier-General SPEARS: So many nice things have been said about the speech of the Financial Secretary that there is almost nothing left to say. I would merely say that he has more than equalled his previous achievements, and that is very high praise indeed. This Debate is the opportunity for the House of Commons to take stock on behalf of the nation of a Service the efficiency of which is a matter of vital interest to the community as a whole. It is something in the nature of a general meeting
of a company. At such a meeting the general manager gives an account of the policy that has been followed by the company, and the shareholders do not expect to be told any secrets but they expect to be told the general principles upon which the business is being conducted. This has been done superlatively well by the Financial Secretary. But here is the difficulty, and he himself has felt it. We are shareholders in two other businesses as well, the Navy and the Air Force. Each one of us holds in a manner of speaking a proxy for thousands of shareholders in these businesses.
By a most unfortunate fact of Parliamentary procedure we are not able to discuss these co-equal and interdependent interests together. Nevertheless in our own minds we cannot help considering them together, and I for one say to myself, just as if I were a shareholder in three factories working in close co-operation, "Is this one justified? What part does it play in the combine?" To-day when I came down to this House I put to myself the question: What is the part played by our Army? Though small, it costs a lot. What is it worth? My hon. Friend answered that question and answered it very well indeed. He explained that the purpose of the Army is to defend the naval bases, its purpose is to defend this country and the Empire. It may be called upon to carry out operations in Europe under our different treaty obligations. It may also be called upon to defend these islands by throwing out a defensive line far afield on the Continent of Europe as happened in the last War.
That was clearly laid down by the hon. Gentleman as the policy of the Government. It has the advantage of being a very broad policy indeed. As I listened to the number of things which this very small Army has to do, I could not help feeling that this poor little Army of ours is expected to be a kind of quick-change artist and I wondered to myself whether it was equipped for its multifarious tasks. It seemed to me that it is just a little too easy to lay down so broad a policy and I suspect that in fact what it amounts to is that there is no policy at all. It is no policy to call upon an army to fulfil a r61e for which it is not equipped, and I do not think it is right to allow the
country to think that the army can fulfil all the rôles which have been described. My hon. Friend had a very good simile about a car. He talked of an individual buying a car that was not perfect in any one respect but was a compromise, because it had to fulfil a good many purposes. I think the car to which he likened the Army is one that would have to climb and swim and fly.
We were told what the functions of the Army were but we were not told what part the Army is to play in the general scheme of defence. It seems to me that the all-important question is, what is the relation of the Army to the other two Services in the general scheme of defence? I know it is very difficult for my hon. Friend to take up that subject because it involves the other Services. Still I think means might be found, indeed they must be found, of explaining the relative parts which each Service is to play in relation to the others. It is very important too that we should know the relative importance of one Service in relation to the other two. One thing seems to be quite clear and it is that as far as a European war is concerned we have not got to-day as effective an instrument as we had in 1914. It is neither so large, nor so well-equipped, comparatively, nor could it be mobilised so quickly.
Personally, I think that from the point of view of peace in Europe that is disastrous. It means that we are unable to enforce our will for peace. It means that we are unable to contribute our part in maintaining order in Europe. It means that we are unable to carry out our obligations. I, myself, have no doubt whatever that we shall reap the harvest of our weakness by having eventually to take part in another race of armaments which we had hoped so much to avoid. Having failed to play our part in providing adequate police, we will have to find in the end large protective forces of our own. My hon. Friend made an amusing point about some military critic of the War Office who had talked of the greater containing the less, and he pointed out the dangers of soldiers venturing into the realm of Euclid. I take it that whoever made the statement meant that if you had a force capable of dealing with a great emergency or a great problem it would also be capable of dealing with lesser problems, and I feel that the critic
was right. It seems to me that if you have an Army that can deal with a major need, it can also fulfil the multifarious minor duties which an army is called upon to perform.
I have often asked myself how are we to picture to ourselves the Army of the future. I am beginning to feel a little anxious about the fact that we do not seem able to get away from the picture of the last War. I have not seen an imaginative effort such as I believe exists in other countries to envisage what may happen if unfortunately we should have war. Is the Army to be a kind of moving air-base, a kind of corral or armoured zareba from which air forces will attack the enemy; or is it to be a kind of super-landing force, employing the might of the Navy to be in a position to attack and land at given points in enemy territory; or is our Army to be prepared to assault the immensely strong modern fortifications of European countries? I do not know. I have not the faintest idea, but I think it would be extremely interesting if we could have given to us some idea of what the conception of this new army is to be.
What I do know is that there is a suspicion in the country that too much reliance is being placed on the infantry. It is still the infantryman who is relied upon. He is weighted down with weapons, he is heavier than ever, but unfortunately, he is more and more vulnerable. I must say that that is the one point of criticism which I would wish to make in connection with the speech of my hon. Friend. His speech reinforced my fears in that respect, and made me feel that, as far as the powers that be are concerned, it is still a case of relying on the infantryman. When you have a very small force such as ours, you ought to concentrate upon saving and sparing the most valuable element you have, and that is the human element. When you have a partly mechanised force, such as we have, it seems to me you have to be particularly careful to work out what the role of the infantry is going to be. You have tanks, and you have infantry. How are the infantry going to keep up with the tanks? Are your fast-moving mechanical devices going to sacrifice their mobility by waiting for the infantry? That surely is all wrong.
On the other hand, if they go off, taking full advantage of their mobility,
then your infantry is very vulnerable indeed, and some means of protecting it must be found. I am speaking without the book, but I would very much like to know if the problem has been thought out and if means have been devised for making the infantry advance rapidly behind the mechanised force. There is one thing of which I am certain, and that is that men have no chance against machines. When there was that awful railway accident on the Continent a couple of months ago, and a steel train caught up with a wooden train and killed practically everybody in that train, I thought to myself that that was a very good example of what would happen when a well-equipped army fought an ill-equipped army.
I am no fanatic concerning mechanisation, but we have been experimenting for 10 years past, and surely the day must come when we must make up our minds. We cannot go on experimenting for ever, otherwise the day is bound to come when we shall be caught napping, and we know what happens when a lady puts off choosing a husband for too long. [HON. MEMBERS: "What is that?"] As I say, I am not a fanatic about mechanisation, and I remember very well that in 1917, when the Germans withdrew to the Hindenburg line and we followed after them, not a single mechanised unit, not a single mechanically drawn gun, was able to follow the enemy. It is true that machinery has improved vastly since then, but if we cannot rely on machines entirely, then have we got the horse supplies that we need? In spite of what my hon. Friend beside me says, we have either to have one thing or the other; either we must have a plentiful supply of horses for an expanding army, or we must be sure that we have the machines to take their place.
If, as I believe, the new war must be really a machine-fought war, what steps have we taken for the mechanical expension that we are bound to have, and, above all, what have we done to provide ourselves with the specialists that are wanted to work these machines? It seems to me that we ought to have a system of short courses, whereby men can be trained—for instance, machine-gunners—in sufficient numbers to man the guns which we should need in an expanded army, and I hope that my hon. Friend will not mind telling me what the
War Office propose to do in view of expanding the Army and providing it with the specialists which will be needed in case the force is expanded?
Lastly, I beg the hon. Gentleman to consider whether at last we shall not be able to have a standard organisation for the whole of our Army, in India, in the Colonies, and at home. It is surely absurd that at this time of day there should be different establishments in India and at home, and surely it is true that the force that is capable of dealing with a European Army is equally capable of dealing with any sort of trouble on the fringes or borders of our Empire. As far as equipment is concerned, there are no conditions which we are likely to meet anywhere which would not have to be met in Europe. My hon. Friend talked of the difficulties that the Japanese tanks had found, I understand, at Shanghai. Either we have the machines that can deal with conditions like the mud of Flanders or we have not, but if we have the mechanical equipment to deal with all the conditions that we can meet in Europe, then we have the equipment which will enable us to meet any difficulty that we may encounter elsewhere. We know that we cannot afford very much, but we want to have a very efficient Army. It may be small, but let it be respected, and let it be an absolute model of its kind. I believe that that is the aim and object of my right hon. Friend and that in his able hands we are very likely to achieve that desire.

10.12 p.m.

Lieut.-Colonel CHARLES MacANDREW: I would like to add my congratulations to those which have been showered on my hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the War Office for his splendid speech this afternoon. The first point that I think worth attention is a Territorial Army Reserve. The Financial Secretary spoke about the Royal Defence Corps, which is to take in men both of the Regulars and of the Territorial Army. But what happens to us with the Territorials? When a man comes to the end of his time, we lose him, and I feel that for a very small expenditure of perhaps 3d. a day, spread over five years, we could have that man, not at camp, but he could attend drills during the five years when his time is up, and it would be an enormous advantage. I would not
suggest that every Territorial would be available for a reserve of that kind, but is would be an enormous advantage to have certain selected men kept on our strength for training in that way and for them in their turn to train other people. It would not cost very much money. A Yeomanry trooper costs £30 a year, and for another £30 you could get six years' work from these men when they come to the end of their time.
Those of us who have the honour of commanding Territorial regiments have been asked lately our views on sending our young officers to Sandhurst and Woolwich in what is normally the holiday time there. I think that is a good idea, but it would be a great mistake to send young officers to Sandhurst or Woolwich until they had done two or three trainings with their unit. If they went when they were going to pass from the second lieutenant to lieutenant, there could be an examination as a way of weeding out those who are apt to get into the Territorials and are difficult to get rid of. This is an excellent idea, but we do not want to send young officers at the beginning of their career.
The third point I should like to make is with regard to attached officers. In my own unit, we have officers attached from year to year, and my experience is that if we could have field officers or captains, they are much more useful than young officers whom we have had sometimes; not that they were not splendid fellows, but when you get a senior officer attached to a Yeomanry regiment you are able to put him on any job, and the fact that he is of a certain age enables him to command the respect that a young man cannot do. I think it would be possible to link up a Yeomanry regiment with a Regular regiment as a sort of sister regiment from which we could get our permanent staff instructors, and possibly our adjutants. That would have an enormous advantage because if we have a Regular soldier attached to us who is inefficient, we do not like to send him back because he would go back with a bad mark, whereas if we could have a sister regiment, we could draw from that, and we could more easily return people who were mot filling the bill. I know that Regular units go abroad, but that difficulty could probably be overcome. To
combine a Yeomanry regiment with a Regular cavalry regiment would be an advantage by enabling the Regular personnel to come and see how we live and behave, and from the point of view of the Yeomanry it would be an advantage by enabling it to have good men attached to it.
I would like to put in a word in support my what my Noble Friend the Member for Newark (Marquis of Titchfield), who commands the Notts Yeomanry, said in regard to the marriage allowance to Territorials under 26 years of age. I know that in the Regular Army they do not get their marriage allowance until they are over 26, but I feel that it is rather different in the case of the Territorials. Generally speaking, one finds that the man who is successful civilly is able to afford to be married at a young age, and if he is a successful civilian, he will be a successful soldier. It is a pity to allow a good young man to leave the Territorials because of that extra small amount they would get as a marriage allowance. I do not see why the Territorials should be linked to the Regulars in this question. Their work is different. I hope this matter will be given serious consideration. I was glad to hear the Financial Secretary refer to the Territorial Army as the cheapest army in the world. I have been in it since it was begun, and I feel that the country gets really good value for the money spent on it. I hope the Financial Secretary will keep in mind that probably £l spent on the Territorials gives about £5 worth of value.

10.19 p.m.

Mr. COOPER: We have had an interesting and wide discussion on the many matters connected with the Army, and I propose to endeavour shortly to reply to some of the speeches that have been made. They have without exception been helpful speeches and have been made by Members who are obviously interested in the Army and want to help it. If I cannot give satisfactory replies, it will not be because I do not appreciate the points of view from which the various speeches have been made. I will deal first, with some of the questions that have been raised on the subject of the Territorial Army, including the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who has just sat down. There are many suggestions
that can be made for helping that Army. All are good and all have merit, but they all have the same objection: they all cost money. I can assure hon. Members that during the year that lies before us we shall be considering in what way we can best help the Territorial Army and in what way we can best spend the money that we hope will be available in future with which to help them.
The hon. and gallant Member also supported the plea of the Noble Lord the Member for Newark (Marquess of Titchfield) for marriage allowances for married Territorials when in camp. That is a suggestion which appeals very much to me, and it has only that objection against it which I have mentioned. There is, of course, the objection which the hon. and gallant Member who has just spoken foresaw, that if it were applied to the Territorials there is always a danger—or the possibility—of a similar demand being made for the men of the regular Army, which would enormously increase the expenditure. I do not think the analogy is entirely correct, and I feel that one might be able, possibly, to resist that plea, but at the same time there is that danger and that objection in view of the enormous increase in expenditure which it would necessitate. With regard to one of his other suggestions, the formation of a reserve for the Territorial Army, that also will receive due consideration. The question is whether the expenditure would be worth while, whether we could not encourage recruiting for the Territorial Army and help men of the Territorial Army by spending that amount of money in some other way.
The hon. and gallant Member for Uxbridge (Major Llewellin) suggested that we should increase the travelling allowances to Territorial officers. That matter is under consideration at the present time, and I hope that some decision may be arrived at which will suit the views which he expressed. With regard to permanent staff instructors, there is a very natural desire on the part of Territorial units to keep their staff instructors, whom they have got to know, to like and to understand, for as long as possible, but, after all, these permanent staff instructors come from the Regular-Army and are supposed to keep the Territorials up to the mark and in touch with the Regular Army, and if they remain too
long with a Territorial unit they themselves get out of touch with the Regular Army and cease to fulfil the purpose for which they were designed. The hon. and gallant Member objected to half the profits from the letting of drill halls going to the Territorial Association and half only to the unit.

Major LLEWELLIN: Part of the money goes to the War Office and part to the Territorial Association, and none to the unit.

Mr. COOPER: The part that goes to the War Office is spent for the benefit of the Territorial Army. It may not be spent in the way that the unit itself or the particular association concerned would wish it to be spent, but it is devoted to the benefit of the Territorial Army. His other suggestion, with regard to proficiency pay, will be taken into consideration with these other suggestions which have been put forward. I would assure all hon. Members who have spoken on behalf of the Territorial Army that we are anxious to do something to help it, to encourage recruiting for it, and it is simply a question with the Army Council as to what money is available and how it can best be spent.
The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street (Mr. Lawson) and the right hon. Member for North-West Cornwall (Sir F. Acland) criticised the increasing expenditure and asked the reasons for it. The line taken by the right hon. Member for North-West Cornwall was that in his day we had a better and a bigger Army and paid less money for it. The right hon. Member, like some other Members of his section of his party, are apt to live rather in the past. Twenty-five years ago, the period of which he was talking, it was possible to get a bigger army and to pay less for it. I do not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman ever indulges in a glass of beer. If he did, he would be aware that in the days of which he was speaking we paid much less for a much bigger glass of much better beer. The same argument applies to the British Army. We have a smaller Army than we then had, and we pay more for it, because prices have gone up in all directions—prices of labour and of clothes. The price of clothes has gone up during the past year, and so have the prices of certain commodities such as bacon and oats. We have to anticipate. We have to estimate
what we are going to spend this year. I am not telling you what we spent last year. The general estimate is a probable rise in some prices for which we have to make allowance.
The hon. Member for Chester-le-Street can be reassured with regard to the abolition of the factory at Pimlico; that has had nothing whatever to do with our increased expenditure. On the contrary, the result has been far better from an economic point of view than I ever dared to expect when I announced the abolition of that factory. It is estimated that from the time of abolishing it we have saved something like £40,000. With regard to the increase in remounts, there also prices have gone up. In the Vote is included £5,000 that we are allowing this year for light-horse breeding. A misunderstanding arose between the right hon. Member for North Cornwall and an hon. Member below the Gangway as to the relationship of the Royal Defence Corps and the schemes of Mr. Haldane, as he was then. What the corps is analogous to is the National Reserve, and not the Special Reserve. It is almost the same as the National Reserve which Mr. Haldane designed.

Sir F. ACLAND: That was my mistake.

Mr. COOPER: It is, of course, a body that will only be used in emergency, that is, in war time, and it had the approval of the great Liberal party in the days of its prime. The right hon. Gentleman also criticised rather bitterly our taking a £500 Vote this year for new barracks in China, and to committing ourselves to a very large Vote of over £1,000,000. He did not like that at all. It might have been thought that it was an innovation, but it was introduced 14 years ago, and it was discussed and approved by the House. It has not been slipped through without my knowledge. On the contrary, it was submitted to the Estimates Committee that deals with those matters, with the Secretary of State with the whole of the Army Council present, when we went through every Vote. So far from there being anything underhand about this Vote, the position is exactly opposite. We want it to be known that it is intended, in the future, perhaps, to spend this large sum of money upon barracks in China.
The House is not committed, nor are the War Office, the country or anybody, to the spending of one penny more than £500. We are taking it, as the right hon. Gentleman said, more or less as a token Vote this year, in order to make inquiries, and to meet any necessary expenditure in making inquiries, and in looking about; not in laying the foundations in a technical sense, in regard to barracks that may be necessary later. Next year should we ask the House to Vote more money, the House will be at liberty to turn it down.
With regard to the rearrangement of duties in the War Office, that is a very large matter, and there again the right hon. Gentleman is going back to the complaints of many years ago. It was defended by my late right hon. Friend Sir Laming Worthington-Evans in 1927 and 1928, and I am not prepared at this late hour to defend again, or to explain to the House, the redistribution of duties between the Quartermaster-General and the Master-General of the Ordnance.
The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) asked a specific question about a case which he had brought to my notice. I have to give him the answer that, when a man writes 14 years after he has left your employment and asks whether you still owe him any money, I do not think it is an unreasonable answer to say that you have every reason to suppose that you do not, that anyhow the records are no longer in existence, and that, having no proof either way, you would not feel justified in paying out the taxpayers' money on a claim of that kind. It is to be regretted, and I am as sorry for the people who made that mistake as the hon. Member himself is, but, if you wait for 14 years before putting forward your claim, you cannot expect that it will be treated in the same way as it would have been if it had been put forward at the right and proper time.
With regard to the hon. Member's remarks about cavalry, I should like to assure him, as an infantryman myself, as he was, that he is not on good ground. I have had occasion during the past year to study military affairs both in my public and in my private life, and the more I study them the more impressed I become by the importance of cavalry in modern warfare. I will not go into the details now, but it might interest the hon. Member to know that the very
last work upon which Lord Haig was engaged, within a month of his death, was the writing of a memorandum for the use of the War Office insisting upon the importance of retaining the cavalry, and explaining the matter in the greatest detail, with illustrations drawn from all the wars in which he had taken part. To my mind it is a most interesting document.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Aston (Captain A. Hope) is still a heretic in regard to Woolwich and Sandhurst, and would like to abolish both. He instanced, as an example of how well an officer can do without having been at either, my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Altrinchan (Sir E. Grigg). But we are not all Members for Altrincham. Although he, with his exceptional qualities, was able to prove to be a first-rate officer in a very short time without the instruction which either of these institutions provides, it does not follow that other people can do the same. I am sure that for very many young men the training that they get, after leaving school at the age at which they do, and going straight into one of these colleges, is far better than being attached, as my hon. and gallant Friend suggests, to their units for a similar period. What may answer in one case does not necessarily answer in another case. I would only refer again to my original statement that I am all in favour of variety of training, and of applying different methods to different individuals.
On the question of promotion, a committee has been sitting for some time under the chairmanship of the late Under-Secretary of State, Lord Stanhope. That committee has arrived at its conclusions, but its report has not yet been printed or circulated. I hope that it will contribute largely towards the solution of a very difficult problem. The hon. Member for St. Albans (Sir F. Fremantle) asked me about the Warren Fisher Report on the Royal Army Medical Corps. He is well acquainted with the details of that report, and I hope it will be adopted and will go as far as he believes it will, towards solving that particular difficulty. As he informed the House—and he knows as much about it as I do—it is now being held up for consideration by the Government of India. I hope it will not take very much longer, and I sincerely hope, as does
everyone at the War Office, that the difficulties which have arisen in regard to the Indian position will not prove insuperable and that the report will be adopted and will help us very considerably in future.

Sir F. FREMANTLE: Is the hon. Gentleman working in that respect with the heads of the Admiralty and the Air Force, as the report dealt with the three Services on the same lines?

Mr. COOPER: Certainly it dealt with the three Services, but at present it is merely from the point of view of the Army in India that it is being held up. The three Services at home are all equally anxious that it should be adopted. With regard to vocational training, I was asked whether we cannot get more men to the centres. I am very-anxious that we should. The difficulty is that many men are unwilling to pay the fee, perhaps not realising how great the advantage is, but, as the number is going up, though I should like to see it going up more, we do not consider the situation unsatisfactory. There is the difficulty also that the units from which the men come are very often unwilling or unable to spare them. The hon. Member for Wentworth (Mr. Paling) asked for how long a period they go. They go for six months—the last six months of their service in the Army. The men who want to undertake the training are men who have made themselves valuable to their units, and sometimes there is real difficulty about allowing them to go. The hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) assumed that the figures I gave of men obtaining employment meant that the 15 per cent. failed to obtain employment. That is not quite a correct assumption. The 15 per cent. are those we get out of touch with. We do not know what becomes of them, but it is to be hoped that a certain proportion of them also obtain employment.
The hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Janner) asked about those employed as tradesmen in the Army who are not eligible for these centres. He referred particularly to clerks and said that, having been used as clerks in the Army, they would be no use for civil life, or that it would be difficult for them to get employment, but I do not think there is as much difficulty as he imagines. The hon. Member for Wentworth asked what
were the trades for which we train men. There are here three pages of the list of trades. It includes nearly everything, but it does not include clerks, because they are not tradesmen in the ordinary sense of the word. I do not quite see how we could meet the particular difficulty to which the hon. Member for Whitechapel referred.
My hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Carlisle (Brigadier-General Spears) asked me many searching questions to some of which I endeavoured to reply in my original speech. He still believes, though I tried to demonstrate the opposite, that an army which is fitted to fight the best European powers on the stricken battlefield must also be the best possible instrument for dealing with a savage tribe in an outlandish district, but I differ from him. I think we have to prepare differently for different contingencies. That is the main problem that lies before us in all our preparations. We cannot go on experimenting for ever, says my hon. and gallant Friend. But we must go on experimenting. We never intend to stop experimenting. We must always be trying new things. We must always be open to change, and looking for change, and testing new inventions. We are never going to commit ourselves once and for all to some definite plan or scheme. I have endeavoured to reply to a great many interesting speeches and extremely pertinent questions. If I have not replied to them all, I can only apologise, but I should like to say that I am sure that from the point of view of the War Office it has been a very satisfactory, interesting and helpful Debate and I hope now that the House will agree, Sir, to your leaving the Chair.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I thought that the Financial Secretary would have said a word or two about the plight of reservists. When almost everybody in this country sustained a cut of 10 per cent the reservists had to face a cut of 25 per cent. That cut was unduly large. Whatever may be said about the restoration of the cut in regard to any section of the Army, I at least expected that those who
had had to submit to such an altogether unfair cut would have had it restored. I should like the Financial Secretary to say whether there is a reasonable chance of the restoration of the reservists cut. With regard to soldiers discharged from the Army on grounds of health, those with whom I come in contact feel that they have been discharged without good and sufficient grounds. If one takes up a case with the War Office, they say that they have satisfied themselves as to the reason. Far be it from me to criticise the War Office on their wisdom or unwisdom in regard to the matter, but the men feel a grievance over their discharge. There ought to be some form of impartial tribunal to which the men could appeal so as to have their case properly judged. When it comes to a question of pension the man has no redress against the decision of the War Office. In every other walk of life there is some sort of appeal. I am not suggesting that a legal procedure should be adopted, but that there should be some sort of tribunal to which a discharged man could reasonably appeal.
I also wish to ask whether it might not be made possible, where a man gets married "on the strength," to make some extra allowance. Soldiers are like persons in ordinary life. They get married when possibly other people think that they should not do so, but certain circumstances often compel them to marry. Often for the sake of a child they get married. The soldier does not suffer, as his wages are not arrestable, but the woman and child have to be kept. It would be better for everyone concerned if a more equitable arrangement could be made than that which has been applicable for many years. I represent a constituency in which a large proportion of men, for good or ill, join the Army, and they constantly bring their cases to my notice. I would ask the hon. Gentleman to remember that, though he is running the machine of the Department, the ordinary private soldier has a soul.

Question put, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

The House divided: Ayes, 176; Noes, 38.

Division No. 165.]
AYES.
[3.35 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Barclay-Harvey, C. M.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Barrie, Sir Charles Coupar


Adams, Samuel Vyvyan T. (Leeds, W.)
Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Beaumont, Hon. R.E.B. (Portsm'th, C.)


Albery, Irving James
Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Belt, Sir Alfred L.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd.)
Balfour, Capt. Harold (I. of Thanet)
Bernays, Robert


Allen, William (Stoke-on-Trent)
Balniel, Lord
Bilndell, James


Boothby, Robert John Graham
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Pearson, William G.


Borodale, Viscount
Hall, Capt. W. D'Arcy (Brecon)
Petherick, M.


Bower, Lieut.-Com. Robert Tatton
Hamilton, Sir George (Ilford)
Peto, Sir Basil E. (Devon, Barnstaple)


Bowyer, Capt. Sir George E. W.
Hamilton, Sir R. W. (Orkney & Zetl'nd)
Peto, Geoffrey K. (W'verh'pt'n, Bilston)


Boyd-Carpenter, Sir Archibald
Hammersley, Samuel S.
Pickering, Ernest H.


Brats, Captain Sir William
Hanbury, Cecil
Pownall, Sir Assheton


Broadbent, Colonel John
Hartington, Marquess of
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Brocklebank, C. E. R.
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Brown, Col. D. C. (N'th'l'd., Hexham)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Rea, Walter Russell


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hellgers, Captain F. F. A.
Reid, Capt. A. Cunningham-


Buchan-Hepburn, P. G. T.
Henderson, Sir Vivian L. (Chelmsf'd)
Reid, David D. (County Down)


Bullock, Captain Malcolm
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Reid. James S. C. (Stirling)


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Remer, John R.


Cadogan, Hon. Edward
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Rhys, Hon. Charles Arthur U.


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Hornby, Frank
Ropner, Colonel L.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Horsbrugh, Florence
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ruggles-Brise, Colonel E. A.


Cautley, Sir Henry S.
Hudson, Robert Spear (Southport)
Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter


Cayzer, Sir Charles (Chester, City)
Hunter, Capt. M. J. (Brigg)
Runge, Norah Cecil


Cayzer, Maj. Sir H. R. (Prtsmth., S.)
Hurd, Sir Percy
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Cazalet, Capt. V. A. (Chippenham)
Hurst, Sir Gerald B.
Russell, R. J. (Eddisbury)


Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Sir J. A. (Blrm, W.)
Jackson, Sir Henry (Wandsworth, C.)
Rutherford, John (Edmonton)


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Salmon, Sir Isidore


Choriton, Alan Ernest Leofric
Joel, Dudley J. Barnato
Samuel, Rt. Hon. Sir H. (Darwen)


Christie, James Archibald
Johnstone, Harcourt (S. Shields)
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Clarke, Frank
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Sassoon, Rt. Hon. Sir Phillp A. G. D.


Cobb, Sir Cyril
Keyes, Admiral Sir Roger
Savery, Samuel Servlngton


Conant, R. J. E.
Knight, Holford
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Cook, Thomas A.
Law Sir Alfred
Shute, Colonel J. J.


Cooke, Douglat
Leckie, J. A.
Simmonds, Oliver Edwin


Cooper, A. Dull
Leech, Dr. J. W.
Sinclair, Maj. Rt. Hn. Sir A. (C'thness)


Copeland, Ida
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Smith, R. W. (Ab'rd'n & Kinc'dlne, C.)


Cranborne, Viscount
Levy, Thomas
Smithers, Waldron


Craven-Ellis, William
Lewis, Oswald
Somervell, Sir Donald


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Locker-Lampion, Rt. Hn. G. (Wd. Gr'n)
Sotheron-Estcourt, Captain T. E.


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galntb'ro)
Loftus, Pierce C.
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Crossley, A. C.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Culverwell, Cyril Tom
MacAndrew, Capt. J. O. (Ayr)
Spender-Clay, Rt. Hon. Herbert H.


Davison, Sir William Henry
McConnell, Sir Joseph
Stanley, Hon. O. F. G. (Westmorland)


Denman, Hon. R. D.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Stevenson, James


Dickie, John P.
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Doran, Edward
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Dower, Captain A. V. G.
McKie, John Hamilton
Taylor, Vice-Admiral E. A. (P'dd'gt'n, S.)


Dugdale, Captain Thomas Lionel
McLean, Major Sir Alan
Thomas, James P. L. (Hereford)


Duggan, Hubert John
McLean, Dr. W. H. (Tradeston)
Thomas, Major L. B. (King's Norton)


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Macpherson, Rt. Hon. Sir Ian
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Eden, Robert Anthony
Macquisten, Frederick Alexander
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Elliot, Rt. Hon. Walter
Magnay, Thomas
Todd, A. L. S. (Kingswinford)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Maitland, Adam
Tree, Ronald


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Making, Brigadier-General Ernest
Tryon, Rt. Hon. George Clement


Eimley, Viscount
Mallalieu, Edward Lancelot
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Emmott, Charles E. G. C.
Mander, Geoffrey le M.
Turton, Robert Hugh


Emrys-Evans, P. V.
Manningham-Butter, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Entwistle, Cyril Fullard
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Ersklne-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Ward, Irene Mary Bewick (Wallsend)


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Martin, Thomas B.
Ward, Sarah Adelaide (Cannock)


Evans, David Owen (Cardigan)
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Watt, Captain George Steven H.


Everard, W. Lindsay
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Wayland, Sir William A.


Fermoy, Lord
Mitchell, Harold P. (Br'tf'd & Chlsw'k)
Weymouth, Viscount


Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst
Mitchell, Sir W. Lane (Streatham)
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Fleming, Edward Lascelles
Mitcheson, G. G.
Whyte, Jardine Bell


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Moore, Lt.-Col. Thomas C. R. (Ayr)
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Fox, Sir Gifford
Moreing, Adrian C.
Wills, Wilfrid D.


Fraser, Captain Ian
Morris-Jones, Dr. J. H. (Denbigh)
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Fremantle, Sir Francis
Morrison, William Shepherd
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Fuller, Captain A. O.
Most, Captain H. J.
Wilson, G. H. A. (Cambridge U.)


Glimour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Wood, Rt. Hon. Sir H. Kingsley


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Wood, Sir Murdoch McKenzie (Banff)


Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Nicholson, Rt. Hn. W. G. (Petersf'ld)
Worthington, Dr. John V.


Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Young, Rt. Hon. Sir Hilton (S'v'noaks)


Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd. N.)
North, Edward T.
Young, Ernest J. (Middlesbrough, E.)


Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Nunn, William



Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro, W.)
Ormsby-Gore, Rt. Hon. William G. A.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES


Grigg, Sir Edward
Patrick, Colin M.
Mr. Womersley and Major George


Grimston, R. V.
Peake, Captain Osbert
Davies.


NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Cape, Thomas
Davies, Rhys John (Westhoughton)


Attlee, Clement Richard
Cocks, Frederick Seymour
Dobbie, William


Batey, Joseph
Cove, William G.
Edwards, Charles


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Daggar, George
George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)


Buchanan, George
Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
Grundy, Thomas W.


Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Tinker, John Joseph


Hicks, Ernest George
McGovern, John
Wedgwood, Rt. Hon. Josiah


Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Maxton, James
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Lawson, John James
Owen, Major Goronwy
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Leonard, William
Paling, Wilfred
Wilmot, John


Logan, David Gilbert
Parkinson, John Allen



Lunn, William
Smith, Tom (Normanton)
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Macdonald, Gordon (Ince)
Thorne, William James
Mr. D. Graham and Mr. Groves.


Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.

Division No. 166.]
AYES.
[10.45 p.m.


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Peat, Charles U.


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Goff, Sir Park
Penny, Sir George


Albery, Irving James
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Petherick, M.


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nh'd)
Graham, Sir F. Fergus (C'mb'rl'd. N.)
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Graves, Marjorle
Padford, E. A.


Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)
Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.


Aske, Sir Robert William
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middlesbro'. W.)
Ramsay, T. B. W. (Western Isles.)


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Ramsbotham, Herwald


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
Rea, Walter Russell


Barclay-Harvey, C. M.
Hanbury, Cecil
Remer, John R.


Bateman, A. L.
Hanley, Dennis A.
Renwick, Major Gustav A.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'th. C.)
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Ropner, Colonel L.


Bernays, Robert
Head lam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Blindell, James
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Runge, Norah Cecil


Borodale, Viscount
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Bracken, Brendan
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Braithwaite, Maj. A. N. (Yorks, E. R.)
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Sandeman, Sir A. H. Stewart


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Sellay, Harry R.


Brass, Captain Sir William
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Broadbent, Colonel John
James, Wing-Com. A. W. H.
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Brockiebank, C. E. R.
Janner, Barnett
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Ker, J. Campbell
Somervell, Sir Donalo


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Soper, Richard


Campbell, Vice-Admiral G. (Burnley)
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Southby, Commander Archibald R. J.


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Llewellin, Major John J.
Spears, Brigadier-General Edward L.


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Spencer, Captain Richard A.


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Loftus, Pierce C.
Spens, William Patrick


Colman, N. C. D.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)


Conant, R. J. E.
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Stevenson, James


Cook, Thomas A.
McCorquodale, M. S.
Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)


Cooper, A. Duff
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Stourton, Hon. John J.


Copeland, Ida
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Strauss, Edward A.


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)
Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
McEwen, Captain J. H. F.
Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
McKie, John Hamilton
Tate, Mavis Constance


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Macmillan, Maurice Harold
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Galnsb'ro)
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest
Thorp, Linton Theodore


Crossley, A. C.
Manningham-Butter, Lt.-Col. Sir M.
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of


Cruddas, Lieut.-Colonel Bernard
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.
Touche, Gordon Cosmo


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Marsden, Commander Arthur
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.


Dickie, John P.
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)
Turton, Robert Hugh


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)


Eden, Robert Anthony
Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
Mitcheson, G. G.
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.


Elmley, Viscount
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres
Wells, Sydney Richard


Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
Moore-Brabazon, Lieut.-Col. J. T. C.
Weymouth, Viscount


Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Moreing, Adrian C.
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Flelden, Edward Brocklehurst
Moss, Captain H. J.
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Fleming, Edward Lascelies
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Munro, Patrick
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Fox, Sir Gifford
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid
Wise, Alfred R.


Fremantle, Sir Francis
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh
Womersley, Walter James


Fuller, Captain A. G.
Palmer, Francis Noel



Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Patrick, Colin M.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Gledhill, Gilbert
Peake, Captain Osbert
Captain Sir George Bowyer and


Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Pearson, William G.
Dr. Morris-Jones.




NOES.


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Owen, Major Goronwy


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grundy, Thomas W.
Paling, Wilfred


Batey, Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Parkinson, John Allen


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Buchanan, George
Kirkwood, David
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Cove, William G.
Lawson, John James
Tinker, John Joseph


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, David (Swansea, East)


Daggar, George
Lunn, William
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
McEntee, Valentine L.
Wilmot, John


Dobbie, William
McGovern, John



Edwards, Charles
Maxton, James
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


George, Major G. Lloyd (Pembroke)
Milner, Major James
Mr. D. Graham and Mr. Groves.

Supply accordingly considered in Committee.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair]

NUMBER OF LAND FORCES.

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a number of Land Forces, not exceeding 149,500, all ranks, be maintained for the Service of the United Kingdom at home and abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions (other than Aden), during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

10.55 p.m.

Mr. MAXTON: I do not want to detain the Committee at this late hour, but my friends and I have each year taken the opportunity of the Service Estimates of giving a vote in favour of our point of view—namely, total disarmament. This evening with other important business to be taken I will not go into the reasons for our attitude. We have made them clear on many previous occasions, and they have been amply reinforced by the various discussions which have taken place on the various Estimates which have been presented, because the general

lessons which we have learned from the speeches of experts on these matters is that it is hopeless for a nation to defend itself against attack. If that is proved by the experts then it is rather a waste of public money to make preparations for defence, which in the eyes of those who seem to know are quite hopeless. Without delaying the Committee in any way I merely want to intimate that my friends and I propose to divide against this Vote.

10.57 p.m.

Mr. LAWSON: May I also say that we are going to vote as we have expressed ourselves during the Debate, against this Vote, but not for the same reasons as the hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton), but because the Vote involves an increase in numbers.

Question put.

The Committee divided: Ayes, 171; Noes, 30.

Division No. 167.]
AYES.
[10.58 p.m.


Acland, Rt. Hon. Sir Francis Dyke
Elmley, Viscount
Macdonald, Sir Murdoch (Inverness)


Acland-Troyte, Lieut.-Colonel
Erskine-Bolst, Capt. C. C. (Blackpool)
McKie, John Hamilton


Agnew, Lieut.-Com. P. G.
Essenhigh, Reginald Clare
Macmillan, Maurice Harold


Albery, Irving James
Fleming, Edward Lascelies
Makins, Brigadier-General Ernest


Allen, Lt.-Col. J. Sandeman (B'k'nhd.)
Foot, Dingle (Dundee)
Manningham-Butter, Lt.-Col. Sir M.


Anstruther-Gray, W. J.
Ford, Sir Patrick J.
Margesson, Capt. Rt. Hon. H. D. R.


Applin, Lieut.-Col. Reginald V. K.
Fox, Sir Gilford
Marsden, Commander Arthur


Aske, Sir Robert William
Fremantle, Sir Francis
Mason, Col. Glyn K. (Croydon, N.)


Bailey, Eric Alfred George
Fuller, Captain A. G.
Mayhew, Lieut.-Colonel John


Baillie, Sir Adrian W. M.
Gilmour, Lt.-Col. Rt. Hon. Sir John
Mills, Sir Frederick (Leyton, E.)


Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley
Gluckstein, Louis Halle
Mills, Major J. D. (New Forest)


Bateman, A. L.
Glyn, Major Sir Ralph G. C.
Mitcheson, G. G.


Beaumont, Hon. R. E. B. (Portsm'th, C.)
Golf, Sir Park
Monsell, Rt. Hon. Sir B. Eyres


Bernays, Robert
Goodman, Colonel Albert W.
Moreing, Adrian C.


Bilndell, James
Graves, Marjorle
Moss, Captain H. J.


Borodale, Viscount
Grenfell, E. C. (City of London)
Muirhead, Lieut.-Colonel A. J.


Bracken, Brendan
Gretton, Colonel Rt. Hon. John
Munro, Patrick


Braithwaite, J. G. (Hillsborough)
Griffith, F. Kingsley (Middiesbro', W.)
Nation, Brigadier-General J. J. H.


Brass, Captain Sir William
Guest, Capt. Rt. Hon. F. E.
Normand, Rt. Hon. Wilfrid


Broadbent, Colonel John
Guinness, Thomas L. E. B.
O'Neill, Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh


Brockiebank, C. E. R.
Hanbury, Cecil
Palmer, Francis Noel


Brown, Ernest (Leith)
Hanley, Dennis A.
Peake, Captain Osbert


Burgin, Dr. Edward Leslie
Harvey, George (Lambeth, Kenningt'n)
Pearson, William G.


Campbell, Sir Edward Taswell (Brmly)
Harvey, Major S. E. (Devon, Totnes)
Peat, Charles U.


Campbell, Vice-Admiral G. (Burnley)
Headlam, Lieut.-Col. Cuthbert M.
Penny, Sir George


Campbell-Johnston, Malcolm
Hills, Major Rt. Hon. John Waller
Powell, Lieut.-Col. Evelyn G. H.


Caporn, Arthur Cecil
Hope, Capt. Hon. A. O. J. (Aston)
Pybus, Sir Percy John


Chapman, Col. R. (Houghton-le-Spring)
Hore-Belisha, Leslie
Bedford, E. A.


Colman, N. C. D.
Howitt, Dr. Alfred B.
Ralkes, Henry V. A. M.


Conant, R. J. E.
Hudson, Capt. A. U. M. (Hackney, N.)
Ramsay, Capt. A. H. M. (Midlothian)


Cook, Thomas A.
Hunter, Dr. Joseph (Dumfries)
Ramsay T. B. W. (Western Isles)


Cooper, A. Duff
Hunter-Weston, Lt.-Gen. Sir Aylmer
Ramsbotham, Herwald


Copeland, Ida
James, Wing-Corn. A. W. H.
Rea, Walter Russell


Courthope, Colonel Sir George L.
Ker, J. Campbell
Remer, John R.


Craddock, Sir Reginald Henry
Kerr, Hamilton W.
Renwick, Major Gustav A.


Croft, Brigadier-General Sir H.
Law, Sir Alfred
Ropner, Colonel L.


Crookshank, Col. C. de Windt (Bootle)
Leighton, Major B. E. P.
Ross Taylor, Walter (Woodbridge)


Crookshank, Capt. H. C. (Gainsb'ro)
Lindsay, Noel Ker
Runge, Norah Cecil


Crossley, A. C.
Llewellin, Major John J.
Russell, Albert (Kirkcaldy)


Cruddas, Lieut-Colonel Bernard
Loder, Captain J. de Vere
Russell, Alexander West (Tynemouth)


Davies, Maj. Geo. F. (Somerset, Yeovil)
Loftus, Pierce C.
Sandeman, Sir A. N. Stewart


Dickie, John P.
Lumley, Captain Lawrence R.
Selley, Harry R.


Duncan, James A. L. (Kensington, N.)
MacAndrew, Lieut.-Col. C. G. (Partick)
Shaw, Helen B. (Lanark, Bothwell)


Eden, Robert Anthony
McCorquodale, M. S.
Shaw, Captain William T. (Forfar)


Ellis, Sir R. Geoffrey
MacDonald, Rt. Hon. J. R. (Seaham)
Smiles, Lieut.-Col. Sir Walter D.


Elliston, Captain George Sampson
MacDonald, Malcolm (Bassetlaw)
Somervell, Sir Donald


Somerville, Annesley A. (Windsor)
Sutcliffe, Harold
Wells, Sydney Richard


Soper, Richard
Tate, Mavis Constance
Weymouth, Viscount


Speare, Brigadier-General Edward L.
Thomson, Sir Frederick Charles
Whiteside, Borras Noel H.


Spencer, Captain Richard A.
Thorp, Linton Theodore
Williams, Charles (Devon, Torquay)


Spens, William Patrick
Titchfield, Major the Marquess of
Williams, Herbert G. (Croydon, S.)


Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Fylde)
Touche, Gordon Cosmo
Wilson, Lt.-Col. Sir Arnold (Hertf'd)


Stevenson, James
Tufnell, Lieut.-Commander R. L.
Wilson, Clyde T. (West Toxteth)


Stewart, J. H. (Fife, E.)
Turton, Robert Hugh
Wise, Alfred R.


Stourton, Hon. John J.
Wallace, Captain D. E. (Hornsey)
Womersley, Walter James


Strauss, Edward A.
Ward, Lt.-Col. Sir A. L. (Hull)



Stuart, Hon. J. (Moray and Nairn)
Wardlaw-Milne, Sir John S.
TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—


Sugden, Sir Wilfrid Hart
Warrender, Sir Victor A. G.
Captain Sir George Bowyer and Dr. Morris-Jones.


NOES


Adams, D. M. (Poplar, South)
Greenwood, Rt. Hon. Arthur
Milner, Major James


Attlee, Clement Richard
Grundy, Thomas W.
Paling, Wilfred


Batey Joseph
Hall, George H. (Merthyr Tydvil)
Parkinson, John Allen


Brown, C. W. E. (Notts., Mansfield)
Jones, Morgan (Caerphilly)
Salter, Dr. Alfred


Buchanan, George
Kirkwood, David
Smith, Tom (Normanton)


Cove, William G.
Lawson, John James
Tinker, John Joseph


Cripps, Sir Stafford
Logan, David Gilbert
Williams, Edward John (Ogmore)


Daggar, George
Lunn, William
Wilmot, John


Davies, David L. (Pontypridd)
McEntee, Valentine L.



Dobbie, William
McGovern, John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—


Edwards, Charles
Maxton, James
Mr. D. Graham and Mr. Groves.


Question put, and agreed to.

PAY, ETC., OF THE ARMY.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £9,478,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the expense of the Pay, &c., of His Majesty's Amy at Home and abroad, excluding His Majesty's Indian Possessions (other than Aden), which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1936.

WORKS, BUILDINGS AND LANDS.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £3,303,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Works, Buildings, and Lands, including military and civilian staff and other charges in connection therewith, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

MISCELLANEOUS EFFECTIVE SERVICES.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £948,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Miscellaneous Effective Services, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

HALF-PAY, RETIRED PAY, AND OTHER NON-EFFECTIVE CHARGES FOR OFFICERS.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £3,496,000, be granted to His Majesty to defray the Expense of Rewards, Half-Pay, Retired Pay, Widows' Pensions and other Non-effective Charges for Officers, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

PENSIONS AND OTHER NON-EFFECTIVE CHARGES FOR WARRANT OFFICERS, NONCOMMISSIONED OFFICERS, MEN, AND OTHERS.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £4,465,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of the Royal Hospital, Chelsea; of
Out-Pensions, Rewards for Distinguished Service, Widows' Pensions, and other Non-Effective Charges for Warrant Officers, Noncommissioned Officers, Men, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

CIVIL SUPERANNUATION, COMPENSATION AND GRATUITIES.

Resolved,
That a sum, not exceeding £221,000, be granted to His Majesty, to defray the Expense of Civil Superannuation, Compensation and Additional Allowances, Gratuities, Injury Grants, etc., which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935.

Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — WAYS AND MEANS.

Considered in Committee.

[Sir DENNIS HERBERT in the Chair.]

Resolved,
That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ended on the 31st day of March, 1933, the sum of £7,366 15s. 7d. be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

Resolved,
That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1934, the sum of £2,313,167 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom.

Resolved,
That, towards making good the Supply granted to His Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1935, a sum of £206,609,700 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."—[Captain Margesson.]

Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

Orders of the Day — NORTH ATLANTIC SHIPPING BILL.

Order for Third Reading read.

11.11 p.m.

The FINANCIAL SECRETARY to the TREASURY (Mr. Hore-Belisha): I beg to move, "That the Bill be now read the Third time."
The Bill has been so fully discussed that I doubt if the House would like me to explain its main objectives again. They are, of course, to retain for us our preeminent position upon the Atlantic, and for that purpose to secure that those companies which are in competition with one another should be united. These matters have been fully discussed, and I am sure the House is ready to give the Bill its Third Reading.

11.12 p.m.

Sir STAFFORD CRIPPS: One does not wonder that the hon. Gentleman uses so few words, because it is so impossible to commend this Bill to the House. We do not believe that this is the way to relieve industry in this country. We believe that far more fundamental measures are necessary before you will be able to do that, but I presume that we must look upon this as such effort as can be made within the system under which we are living at the present time, unfortunately, and we believe it will be futile, except as a temporary expedient to employ a certain number of men upon the building of these ships. It is only because of that that we do not propose to vote against this Third Reading. The country is crippled by having a National Government as it has now, and even their very small and ineffective Measures must not be opposed too strenuously. I do not believe that any Government has ever asked the House of Commons to pass a Bill in this form before—a blank cheque to the Treasury for £9,500,000 upon an experimental service, as to which there has never been any test, and with no provision by which the House can recall its permission to proceed with further vessels if the first vessel, which is admittedly an
experiment, fails to win the blue riband about which the hon. Gentleman is so extremely anxious.
When one reads the operative part of Clause 1, Sub-section (1), one finds that the Government, presumably because, as we understood from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, they must abide by their agreement, have put themselves into the position of having absolutely no legal guarantees of any sort in an Act of Parliament as regards this money. There were, we thought, certain matters which could have properly been adopted in order to protect this generous Government in the loaning of this money. They might even have had someone to watch their interests, but they cannot do that because the Cunard Company would not like it and have not agreed to it. They might have put in a fair wages clause, but they cannot do that because the Cunard Company have not agreed to it, and it might upset the settling of the agreement with other parties.
Surely, if we are to go in for this sort of generosity, we may as well put on some kind of control in order that we may see that our generosity is not wholly misplaced. It strikes the ordinary individual as rather extraordinary that when we vote £9,500,000 for an experiment of this sort, we do it without any safeguards of any kind, but when we discuss questions like unemployment benefit and such like matters, we put in the most stringent safeguards of every conceivable kind to see that none of the money is in any way wasted or misspent. Although this is going to employ a certain number of persons, it is not going to do it in an economical way, or indeed in the best way for the country. Having said that, I do not want to detain the House to-night, but will simply reiterate that had it not been for the fact that this is one of the few suggestions that the National Government have been able to put forward to re-employ anybody, we should certainly have opposed it for its complete unsoundness in finance, and also because we believe that this is one of the most vicious ways in which capitalism wastes its resources. As there is the hope of this employment, while protesting against the Bill, we shall not vote against it.

11.15 p.m.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I enter this Debate to restate my case against this Bill. I hope that the hon. and learned Member for East Bristol (Sir S. Cripps), for whom I have a great personal regard for his ability and capacity, will not object if I offer a word or two of criticism of what he has said. I have a respect for his reasoning. I have recently read a pamphlet which he has written on the question of Socialism and I think it is one of the best things I have read for some time. I wish the same reasoning powers had been applied by him to this Bill. In effect, he says that the Bill is bad; its financial Clauses are bad, but, as it provides work, he would not vote against it. May I remind him of the fact that he divides against the Admiralty Vote. That Vote provides work, but he divides against it because it is for armaments. As the hon. and learned Gentleman knows, it will not be long before this boat becomes an armament too. It will be a troopship; it will be a potential carrier of arms. It will be potentially as much a part of the Naval armaments as a Naval boat itself. The hon. and learned Gentleman will divide—quite rightly—against the beet-sugar Measure. Whatever may be said about the Navy, beet-sugar is not armaments. There is no more peaceful thing than beet-sugar. One may say that the wrong people got the money in that case, but at any rate it provided work. I think that I voted for the beet-sugar subsidy myself in the first instance because I thought it was experiment worth trying; and at any rate it provided work, if that is to be the test. But if we want to spend public money we can spend not merely £9,500,000 but £900,000,000 and find an excuse for it in the fact that it would be providing someone with work. For, indeed, it was an early argument of the Socialists that the millionaire provided work. It may be I am unjust in this observation, but I feel that had it not been for certain outside influences, and had the Labour movement voted on this subject on its ordinary everyday merits, they would have divided against this Bill to-night.
Is this the best way in which the nation can spend £9,500,000 at the present time? The Labour party must answer that question. If it is a question of providing work
I submit that there are a hundred better ways of spending that money. The other day we debated pit-head baths and the provision of decent social surroundings for the most harassed section of the community. It is estimated that £8,000,000 would provide every pit with a bath, a gymnasium and a canteen. Would it not have been better to spend that £8,000,000 now, this year, in providing the hygienic necessities for the mining community instead of taking 10 years over it? I regard the present request for £9,500,000 as a form of organised blackmail on the community. I represent a division near where this ship is being built, and I should be wrong and lacking in political knowledge if I said that the proposal under consideration is not popular in the West of Scotland—in some ways it is—but I have never done in this House the things that are popular and I am not going to start now. [Interruption.] I do not want to be led away from my subject by hon. Members. This thing may be popular, but I trust that we come here to do our duty and to face the consequences, and I will take them on.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Do you think that you are the only one who faces consequences?

Mr. BUCHANAN: The less said about that the better.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Everything I have done is as clean as your actions.

Mr. BUCHANAN: On questions of cleanliness I leave it to the hon. Member to judge. His reputation is so high that he can be safely left with that. I say that to my mind this proposal is organised blackmail. A ship is started and is half finished. While it is half finished every man sees a possible job of work there. It lies there, an advertisement, and undeniably a force, because men want to finish what they have started. When next the Company wish to blackmail the Government, let them start a ship, and leave it, and it will create a force with the public agitation behind it which will blackmail money out of the Government. That is what has been done in this case, in my view. Men have seen jobs, and they want jobs. Men are human and they have seen their work there.
This method of getting behind the Government is wrong and is one of the most vicious methods that I have ever seen. To-day we are providing money, although there are other means by which it could be provided. It is said that 10,000 men will be given work for 18 months; make it two years or three years. This £9,500,000 of public money could have been given to the unemployed. Every cut could have been restored to them in full. Their children's allowances could have been increased, and sums of money could have been spent upon boots, clothing and other human necessities which would have provided work. What are we doing? We are providing two ships and £9,500,000, some of which will go to the 10,000 workers. When those workers have built the ships, we shall give those ships as valuable assets to a rich company, free. Hon. Members say that we shall get the money back; but everybody in the city knows that it is not coming, and that there is not a cat's chance of it coming back. Hon. Members know as well as I do that there is very little chance of our receiving a penny back. In giving the money to the unemployed, we should be giving it to those who need it.
I heard the hon. Member for Normanton (Mr. T. Smith) the other day speak with sentiment, and he was, I think, proud of it—about the welfare side of the mining industry. Other hon. Members thought that it was sob-stuff. When we speak like that about human beings, that is what it is called; but the Blue Riband brings sentiment galore. Hon. Members can pour it out wholesale, but such sentiment must not be used for the children because then it is sob-stuff. An hon. Member has said that we must make the "greyhound of the Atlantic" travel fast; that is sentiment. Do not let us be overawed by too much sentiment. Let us get down to the facts. Not only, in this case, do we provide two ships, but we also provide £1,500,000 for working capital in order to make sure that the ships run well. Then we shall say to the company: "There are two big ships for you; beautiful ships that are to capture the Atlantic trade—the cream of the traffic—and there is another £1,500,000 to run them". We are told that the men who run the company know all about it.
I would like to know from the Government—although other hon. Members speak for the Government I want the Government to speak for themselves, and particularly the President of the Board of Trade, who knows something about shipping—what there is really outstanding about the chairman of the Cunard Company? What is there outstanding about his knowledge of shipping? We see things on the Order Paper every day attacking poor people, and Noble Lords are not immune from criticism either. This chairman has no overwhelming, unchallengeable knowledge of the North Atlantic trade; he is comparatively speaking a newcomer in the business. Not only he, but others of his colleagues are not outstanding in their knowledge of this matter. But, in any case, this is making them a present of, first, two ships, and then £1,500,000 of public money.
It is said that this is to provide work. What is the basis on which it is to provide work? A merger company is to be formed, and part of the conditions is that two ships now running are to be replaced by one. Two ships, which now carry two captains, two sets of officers, and two crews, are to be replaced by one. What does that mean? It means that you must have fewer men for this ship which is to help to solve unemployment. I admit that it is a job for 10,000 men; call it 20,000 if you like. But it will mean in the years to come, not a job, but that you have given £9,500,000 which succeeds temporarily in giving jobs to 10,000 men, but permanently throws out an equally large number. Where is the solution of the unemployment problem there? I may be wrong; I may be unduly pessimistic in these matters; but I come back to the issue that has been raised time and again—if this is a good business proposition, calculated to do what it is said it will do, why is it not floated as any other business proposition would have been? If it has all this behind it, what a criticism it is of the rich. If the blue riband of the sea means anything such as they say it means, why is it that the rich in this country have not provided the money themselves? If this sentiment is so noble and so high, why has not the money market been resorted to for an enterprise so laudable? Why have they not taken the risk? Even if they lost, was the great nobility of the cause not greater than any loss? It is because even they,
though they may talk of sentiment, know that the business project behind it is not of sufficient value for them to venture their money in.
Yesterday we debated a fair wages Clause, the insertion of which in the Bill was refused. We were told that the firm who are building this ship, and those associated with them, are the finest shipbuilders in the world. As to that I am not qualified to judge, and I would not say that they were not the best. But while they may be capable shipbuilders, there are those in the industry whose wages are not at all creditable to those who employ them. Rather than be a party to these proposals I would pass out of public life altogether.

11.36 p.m.

Mr. ALBERY: There has probably never been introduced into the House a Bill which has carried with it more unanimously the good wishes of the whole House. I do not suppose there is a single Member who does not wish to assist what the Bill desires to achieve. But I doubt if there has ever been introduced a Bill on which the House has been given so little assurance and so little information and been left in so great doubt whether it will in fact achieve that which we desire. There is one Member of the Government with a great knowledge of shipbuilding and all that concerns it. If he had thought fit to address the House on the subject, he would have carried the whole House with him. I think there would have been no opposition to the Bill if he had said that in his considered opinion it was not only desirable but would achieve the object it was intended to achieve. Unfortunately, we have been left to our own resources. We have had to make our own enquiries and, frankly, the result of those enquiries has not been encouraging. The only information given was by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in that the Cunard Co. believe in the scheme and believe it will be a success. It is a great company and has been a credit to the country and to the British flag, but one cannot disguise from oneself the fact that in this matter the Cunard Company is an interested party. When this goes through, as no doubt it will, I can only hope that it will achieve all that is intended,
but in the circumstances I do not care to share in the responsibility for passing the Bill.

11.39 p.m.

Mr. DUNCAN GRAHAM: There are quite a number of interests in the House of Lords now affected by this Bill. As I have listened to Debates on other days I have, more or less, had a feeling that I should like to say something and I am going to say it now. I am not catering for popularity here or anywhere else. If the hon. Member for Gravesend (Mr. Albery) or the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Gainsborough (Captain Crookshank) represented constituencies similarly placed to Clydebank and Dumbarton, there would have been no opposition to the Bill from them. They are not any better than we are.

Mr. ALBERY: I do not see what right the hon. Member has to make that statement. If I do not come here to represent such a constituency as his, I have not at any time insinuated in any way that he was actuated, in any attitude that he might take up, by other than proper motives, and I do not think that he is entitled to make such an insinuation.

Mr. GRAHAM: Possibly not, but, if the hon. Member had been living for two or three years in a locality such as my hon. Friend the Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) represents, he would have had a very different case in regard to this matter. That does not mean that I am one of those who think that the Cunard Company are exceptionally fine employers. I do not know anything at all about them, and I am not going to say anything either to their credit or discredit. But I know something about that part of the country, and ray hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) knows about it too. He knows that there is no other part of Scotland which has been more badly hit by unemployment during the last two or three years than Dumbarton and Clydebank. The whole of the West of Scotland is badly affected, and has been for a number of years. My sympathy goes to the building of this ship, because it will give employment. That is the only reason why I am supporting
it. I support it because there are no other industries in Clydebank and Dumbarton.

Mr. BUCHANAN: The biggest factory is that of Singers' Sewing Machines.

Mr. GRAHAM: That is perfectly true, and there is the Calico Printing, in the Vale of Leven, but the industry of Clyde-bank and Dumbarton is shipbuilding. There have been some thousands of men idle there for the last few years, considerably more than 50,000. There is little or no chance of the men engaged in that particular industry in Clydebank and Dumbarton being able to find employment anywhere else in any other occupation, because unemployment in the other industries in the West of Scotland is as bad as in shipbuilding or engineering. The view that I take on this matter is that anyone who opposes an attempt to relieve the situation in Clydebank and Dumbarton really takes up the position of saying that these men should be permanently unemployed, that this particular locality should be marooned, and that it should be left entirely outside the ordinary civilisation of this country.
Apart from, and in addition to, that, I represent a mining constituency, and I am near an engineering and iron and steel constituency, and I hope that the building of this ship will be helpful. When the building of the second ship is considered—and I trust that both will come to the Clyde—I hope that those who are opposing this matter on this occasion and are cheering the opposition will not put forward claims for the Tees and the Wear, which are as equally affected by the shipbuilding difficulty as Clydebank. I look forward with hope to a considerable number of men being taken off the unemployment register not only in Clydebank and Dumbarton, but in Motherwell and Hamilton. But that does not mean that I agree with the policy pursued by the Government in handing over the control of the building of this ship to the Cunard Company. It does not mean that I have shed any belief that I held so far as Socialism is concerned. I am still a Socialist and shall continue so, no matter whether this ship is built by a private company or by the State. The thing that influences me is the necessity of getting men into work, and I plead with my hon.
Friends below the Gangway, who are equally anxious to see men drawing wages rather than unemployment benefit. The important thing is to get men off the unemployment register. Two or three years may elapse before these ships are built and a great many things may happen between now and then. There may be an entirely different Government in power. The benches may be occupied by different people, and an entirely different policy may be pursued. The problem before us is immediate—to get men off the unemployment register. That does not apply only to the County of Dumbarton, but it covers the whole of the West of Scotland. I am very pleased that the Labour party, as a whole, have agreed not to vote against the passing of the Bill and I sincerely hope that my hon. Friends below the Gangway, who sometimes profess to have a higher regard for the unemployed than other hon. Members—

Mr. BUCHANAN: We voted for more than 2s. for a child.

Mr. GRAHAM: So did I.

Mr. BUCHANAN: You voted for 2s.

Mr. GRAHAM: I was a Member of this House when the payment in respect of the child of an unemployed person was 1s. and I was a Member of the first Government that increased the payment by 100 per cent. from 1s. to 2s. It has remained at 2s. ever since. Some of my hon. Friends, for propaganda purposes and nothing else, submitted an Amendment that the allowance should be increased to 5s. a week. I did not vote for that.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is entirely outside this Bill.

Mr. GRAHAM: I shall have an opportunity on another occasion to deal with that matter. In any case I do not stand for men being paid unemployment benefit rather than wages. The course which the hon. Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) would appear to favour is that they should have more unemployment benefit and continue to be unemployed. I am not standing for that. The hon. Member is not merely a Socialist Member of Parliament but he claims to be chairman of a trade union.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I do not claim—I am.

Mr. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. Graham) to get back to the Bill.

Mr. GRAHAM: I wanted to draw attention to the fact that as chairman of a trade union the right hon. Member would not be particularly anxious that the members of his organisation should be idly drawing benefit from his trade union rather than getting work and paying their contributions.

Mr. BUCHANAN: I will be responsible for them.

Mr. GRAHAM: I hope the Bill will pass and that the result of its passage will be a very considerable increase in the number of men working in the West of Scotland.

11.50 p.m.

Sir JOHN WARDLAW-MILNE: I will not detain the House for five minutes at the outside, and I shall probably take less. I certainly do not intend to take part in the Alice-in-Wonderland Tweedle-dum-and-Tweedledee battle which has been going on between the hon. Gentlemen on the benches below me. The hon. Gentleman who has just sat down was doing less than justice to certain hon. Members of this House when he—indirectly at any rate—accused them of having no desire to see employment increase merely because they were doubtful about the propriety of this Bill becoming an Act of Parliament. I should not be doing justice to myself or to my duties in this House if I did not say that I was extraordinarily doubtful as to the decision to which the Government have come. I am certain that they have judged the matter very fully, and gone into it very carefully, and that, having come to the decision to which they have come, the way in which they are doing it is the only way in which the matter could be carried forward.
I would, however, point out that the House has had no information whatsoever as to the facts upon which the Government have come to this decision. My hon. Friend the Financial Secretary to the Treasury said, in a statement which he has repeated more than once, that the Government had come to their
decision to maintain our supremacy on the Atlantic. That is, no doubt, a desirable thing to do, but, when it goes to the extent of this sum of money, I should have felt a great deal happier if the Government had told me that they were satisfied, as a result of careful enquiry, first, that there was a reasonable chance of their getting a large proportion of these advances repaid at some time or another; and, secondly, that they were fairly certain that there was a reasonable chance of these ships being successful. It is not possible for anybody, however long his connection with shipping may have been, to say that ship of this kind cannot pay. The same kind of thing was said, no doubt, when ships like the "Mauretania" were built many years ago.
At the same time, there is this to be considered. Great as those ships were in those days, the present ones are much greater. We are in the position to-day of building 75,000–ton ships. I speak subject to correction, but I think there are very few ports in the world into which those ships can go. They must travel on a certain line and nowhere else; there are practically no other ports available for them. It is the experience of most Governments in the world that subsidies to build ships result in subsidies to run those ships. Anxious as I am to see the Government extend in every possible way expenditure which will bring about real employment, I am bound to say that the House has not had much information upon which to satisfy itself that the Government have come to their decision on grounds which would appeal to any ordinary business committee as suitable for the advancement of such a large sum of money. While I cannot oppose the Bill, and anxious as I am to provide employment, and while no human being can possibly say that the thing will be a failure or that the money will not be repaid, at the same time the House is entitled to a little more information that it has received in the past about the grounds on which the Government are so sure that we are not encouraging a very large expenditure on a scheme which has very little chance of being a profitable venture.

11.54 p.m.

Mr. DICKIE: Like my hon. Friend, I shall not detain the House for more than
a few minutes. I rise merely to make an appeal to the Parliamentary Secretary on two points which have emerged during the course of the Debate. Before making that appeal, I desire to dissociate myself entirely from the line taken by my hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham). I come from a shipbuilding area which is as badly distressed as the West of Scotland, but the last thing in the world I should ever think of doing is to appeal to the Government to build Cunarders merely for the purpose of giving employment. If there is any validity in the argument then the solution of our problem is to be found in the building of twelve of these ships and distribute them among various shipyards. It is Alice in Wonderland economics, with which I should never wish to be associated. I view with some misgivings the spending of this huge sum of money on the finishing of 534 and the provision of a second ship. I agree that when work was stopped on the building of 534 the Government found themselves in a difficult position having regard to the fact that our maritime prestige was at stake, and I think that they came to a wise decision. They had come to a wise decision in enabling the Company to make provision for a second ship. In a case of this kind one ship is of no use; two ships are essential to meet the requirements of the service. This is the point upon which I should like an assurance from the Financial Secretary. A few days ago he said that when the order for the building of the second Cunarder was placed, it would be on a purely commercial basis. That is the only basis upon which such an order ought to be placed, and I am not going to join in the scramble as to whether it should go to the Clyde, to Birkenhead, or to the Tyne. It is a purely commercial matter, but I want to put this point. We who represent shipbuilding areas in England and Scotland are gravely concerned at the amount of financial assistance which is being given to shipbuilding firms by the Government of Northern Ireland on condition that they place their orders in the Belfast shipyards. The House has been reminded that the amount of money is about £12,750,000.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is quite outside the scope of the Bill.

Mr. DICKIE: I only desire to call attention to the fact that such a policy places English and Scottish yards at a great disadvantage. I rose principally to stress the point which has already been made by the hon. Member for Southampton (Sir C. Barrie). During these Debates we have heard a lot about British prestige on the seas, and I agree that it must be maintained in this particular class of travel, but I say emphatically that British maritime supremacy does not rest upon the luxury liner. It has been built up by the tramp steamer which has made this country the carriers of the world, the tramp steamer is the shuttle of the Empire's loom.

Mr. SPEAKER: That argument is not relevant to this Bill.

Mr. DICKIE: We are faced with subsidised shipping all over the world, and my point is that when such a large sum of money is being given away it is a case for consideration as to whether some assistance might not be given to this particular section of the shipping industry.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is an argument which might be put on a suitable occasion, but this is not an occasion to raise it.

12 m.

Mr. BOOTHBY: I only want to ask one specific question. The sort of speech to which we have just listened and the speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) make some of us feel profoundly uneasy about this Bill. I am all for constructive expenditure of any kind, but £9,500,000 is a large sum, and this is a very speculative enterprise. I would support what the hon. Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne) has said. We have not been told by the Government, in spite of repeated requests, what principle is causing them to take this particular action. That is the first thing which we have not been told. Secondly, we have not yet been told why they think these two particular ships are likely to prove a commercial and financial success. The Second Reading Debate was enough to cause anyone considerable apprehension. As has been pointed out, the one member of the Government to whom this House would listen with the greatest respect on the subject is the President of the Board of Trade. We have not had the benefit of his advice on this question.
The expert on shipping we listened to was the hon. Member for Southampton (Sir C. Barrie) whose speech simply consisted in saying: "This is a splendid start; we are starting with two Cunarders but it is only a beginning. We hope to go on and subsidise in the next few years the whole of British shipping". That is why some of us are to-day apprenhensive of the expenditure of this large sum. The enterprise admittedly is of a speculative character. If I may ask the Financial Secretary one question, it will be this. I think everyone is agreed, and it is confirmed by the hon. Member for Southampton, as an expert, that the success of this enterprise, if it is to be successful, will depend almost entirely upon the question of speed. We may ask, therefore, before we part with the Bill whether the Financial Secretary cannot give an assurance that this ship, or ships, if constructed, will at any rate be faster than any other ship of a similar character in the North Atlantic trade.

12.3 a.m.

Mr. PALING: I want to offer an objection to the way this business has been conducted. When this Bill was brought before the House we were told that it was because agreement had reached a certain point. That has been proved untrue. Then there is the fact that the Bill went through the ordinary stages, and, when an amendment was set down, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, who were responsible for particular Amendments, did not oppose a single Amendment on its merits. In other words, the House had no opportunity of altering the Bill by any Amendment. When the Amendments were reached each representative simply said: "We have made an agreement and a bargain from which we cannot depart, and however good the Amendment may be, we cannot do anything here." The Chancellor must have known it would have to come before the House of Commons, and he took away its power to amend it in any shape whatever. He simply said: "I have made my agreement, and I will use my power as Chancellor of the Exchequer, and our enormous majority, in order to force it through the House of Commons without the alteration of a comma". We
cannot help it now, for the Government will force it through, but I hope it is not a precedent for the future, and that, if any agreements are to be made, the House will have the right to alter them if it thinks fit.

12.5 a.m.

Mr. CHARLES WILLIAMS: I would like to thank the Government for two concessions which are of considerable importance. In the first place, they met us with an assurance yesterday that the Cunard Company would pay fair wages to the men engaged on this ship, and I think every Conservative Member of Parliament will congratulate the Government on having given that assurance. Although we know that the Cunard Company do pay fair wages, it is essential that we should secure as good wages for the men as are possible.

Mr. SPEAKER: This is a subject that does not come within the Bill.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I bow to your Ruling, Mr. Speaker. I hope I shall not now be accused of any lack of gratitude for what we were given on that occasion. It seems clear that this is a subsidy of one of the worst types possible. You are taking an industry which is absolutely vital to this country, and you are hitting that industry very hard by heavy taxation, and then you are taking the taxpayers' money with which to subsidise that industry. I cannot see what is the good of going on drawing money out of an industry on the one hand and, on the other hand, putting it back by means of a subsidy. Many of us in this House realise the difficult position as far as this particular ship is concerned and have a genuine desire to see that the ship is built. We have full sympathy with the object aimed at, but surely it could have been achieved in some better way than by the mere granting of a subsidy. As an illustration, would it not have been possible to give the Company a very much larger remission of profits for Income Tax purposes than four per cent.? I give that as an illustration.

Mr. SPEAKER: I think that illustration had better be left out on this occasion.

Mr. WILLIAMS: I will not follow that line any longer, but it is very difficult at this time of night to get up and say
anything against the policy of a Government that has a colossal majority. I realise that the difficulties are there, and I have never thought it was my job merely to say what I thought was in the interests of common popularity. If I had done that, it might have been easier for me, but I have no intention of doing so. I feel very deeply indeed about many of us having been asked to support and vote for a Bill of this kind. The principle of subsidy involved in the Bill is definitely against the policy which we were returned to this House to carry through. I may be blamed for the fact that on the Second Reading I was unable to vote in the same lobby as the Government, but at any rate I was in extraordinarily good company, with more than half the Cabinet, and I would like to explain the very difficult position in which I find myself in supporting a Bill like this. I would naturally like to work in as close co-operation with the Government as possible—that is what I am here for—but it is a little difficult when I find that practically no member of the Cabinet who is a Liberal has supported this Bill once, all the way through. I say quite honestly that I want to work with the whole of the members of the Cabinet as it is constructed to-day. But how can I go down into my Division and talk to Liberals, as I have to do, when the point that I am met with is that none of them supported the Government on this point? As my hon. Friend opposite said, the best shipping advice that can be obtained in this House should be given us on this occasion. I believe that subsidies are the wrong principle with which to meet the question of employing people, and I regret that the Government has taken this method of forcing the House of Commons, with very little explanation indeed. They have not even told us the speed of these ships, and that is not the best way in which the House of Commons is likely to be able to deal with the troubles of unemployment which we have still to face.

12.12 a.m.

Mr. MAXTON: I only rise because of the speech of the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. D. Graham) and certain interjections by the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood). The
hon. Member for Hamilton made the suggestion that when any proposal was made from this quarter, it was done for propaganda purposes.

Mr. D. GRAHAM: No, I did not say that. I said that I had supported an increase of 1s. in the children's allowance and the hon. Member's friends had put down an Amendment to increase the allowance by 5s., for propaganda purposes.

Mr. MAXTON: The reason why I put that Amendment on the Order Paper was that I hoped to get 5s. for the children of the unemployed. I hope the hon. Member will give me credit for being as honest in my intentions in my Parliamentary work as is generally conceded to Members of Parliament. I cannot remember any occasion when any of us here accused the hon. Gentleman of doing anything but casting every vote for his own good reasons. The question of popularity would always be one of very secondary importance to him, as it is to me, but he must allow to my hon. Friend the Member for Gorbals (Mr. Buchanan) and to me the credit of genuine and serious reasons for opposing a Vote in this House which we know better even than he would at the outset be a popular thing to give. It would be a popular thing on the Clyde to-day to support the expenditure of £9,500,000 for the building of a Cunarder, but if I have any political vision at all, I want to say to my hon. Friends the Members for Dumbarton Burghs and Hamilton that I do not think this will be a popular thing a few months hence. I want to say to the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs—and I am sure he will take it as friendly on my part—that I do not believe that the proposal for the building of this ship on Clydebank will meet with universal approval in the other part of his constituency.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: Let me just tell the hon. Member that he makes a mistake. It has the entire approval of Dumbarton as well as Clydebank.

Mr. MAXTON: I was not in Dumbarton, but I was in Clydebank, and I found a minority of citizens who were not particularly enthusiastic.

Mr. KIRKWOOD: That is sometimes the case. Certain people went down there and opened a new branch, and found that that was quite true.

Mr. MAXTON: The hon. Member must not assume that when the party to which we belong takes the proper steps to further its political philosophy, that that action is directed against him in his Division. He must realise that it is the duty of every political party to further its own point of view as actively as it can. He took it as being an affront to himself, but he must not take it as being anything of a personal nature, any more than we took it as a personal affront when he left us and associated himself with hon. Members there.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: Has this anything to do with the Bill?

Mr. MAXTON: That is not a very patriotic thing to say. We are discussing the question of £9,500,000.

Lieut.-Colonel ACLAND-TROYTE: The hon. Member is discussing a personal matter with the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood).

Mr. MAXTON: If the hon. and gallant Gentleman will cast his mind back, and if he was following the earlier part of my argument—assuming that he has not just awakened in the last minute—he will recollect that I was making certain references to public opinion in the Clyde area. It is a popular thing now to build a Cunarder; I venture to suggest that in 12 months from now, when the work is done and when the ephemeral satisfaction with a few people being in work has finished, the West of Scotland will not think that anything has been done for the permanent restoration of the shipbuilding industry, nor for the permanent advantage of the shipping industry which is so important to the West of Scotland. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury quoted a speech from me with considerable effect the other evening, during the Second Heading Debate. I had not treasured the speech in the same way as he seemed to have done. I went and refreshed my memory about it and I found that what he had quoted was not the speech which I had made, but a very much better speech than I had made, compiled by choosing the most suitable
extracts from different parts of that speech. If he will refresh his mind again, he will find that what I said was that the stoppage of work on that ship was a very serious blow to the shipping prestige of this country; and that I pointed out, further, that this ship was started, when a Labour Government was in office, by private enterprise, at a time when there was supposed to be a financial panic in the country, and when nobody trusted the future of the country because there was a Labour Government in office. The Company were prepared to take the risks on its own shoulders—all the risks of building and of sailing—at that time. When a National Government is in power, which is supposed to put private enterprise on its feet, the whole thing had to stop.
The enterprise was a sound capitalist proposition in the early part of 1931, when a Labour Government was in power, when we were rushing headlong to disaster, according to the prophets, when nobody in the business world had any confidence in the future; but when the Government of safety came in it had to be stopped. The furthest that ever I went in support of this scheme was to make a suggestion that the Government should in some way secure that this company should be able to raise cheap money for itself in the market. My hon. Friend the Member for Hamilton and I have spoken on the same platform on many occasions, and we know each others political philosophy very well. Did he ever dream, in his wildest moments, that he would ever put it down as one of his political principles that public money should be given to private capitalism for private capitalism's purposes without check or control? And yet he sits there to-night as a Socialist.

Mr. D. GRAHAM: Aye, and I am.

Mr. MAXTON: In these days, when we have Socialists sitting in the National Government, we must not be too saucy or pernickety about the definition of Socialism, but in my earlier, more simple, days it was a definite tenet: Never give public money to private enterprise without Government control. I have attended most conferences of the Labour party until recently, and I do not know of the
one at which that doctrine was given up. The important thing for Government supporters to note is that this marks a departure from a principle, a big general principle, that was to govern the whole of the operations of the National Government. The most responsible Ministers have told us repeatedly that the policy of stimulating employment by pouring out public money on work schemes had been proved up to the hilt to be an impossible, a futile policy, that the amount spent per man employed was far out of proportion to the value gained. I do not say that they were right when they took that stand against public works, I do not say that if they discovered the error of that point of view they were not right to depart from it, but I say that if they wanted to depart from it they should have done it in some sort of a planned way. They should not say "We will chuck £9,500,000 here and £9,500,000 there and £9,500,000 somewhere else." If they are reversing the policy they worked on, and are starting on a policy of stimulating industry by public subsidy, let us have the plan. I think we could have got much more for £9,500,000 than we are getting here. The hon. Member for Southampton (Sir J. Barrie) is not here to-night, but I do believe that £9,500,000 spent in giving small grants could have provided a tremendous stimulus for the smaller branches of shipping. Instead of giving the money to one company they could have done for shipping what it is proposed to do for housing—they could have reconditioned ships.

Mr. SPEAKER: That is a topic on which the hon. Member must not embark on the Third reading of this Bill.

Mr. MAXTON: I say that to spend the whole of this sum on two ships, a proceeding which adds nothing really permanent to the equipment of our merchant shipping, seems to be the poorest way of spending public money. My Friends and I oppose this Bill not because we do not want people to get work but because, if money is to be spent to stimulate, it ought to be spent in such a way as to produce the greatest stimulus over the widest area and with the most permanent good for the biggest section of the community. Those are
sound principles. I agree with other hon. Members who have said that the brains of the Government as a whole were never applied to this proposition. I cannot believe that this scheme was ever looked at in the right way. They are a Government made up of men of experience from all political parties and of varying political philosophies and if they had applied their minds to the question of what is the best thing to do for shipbuilding, shipping or general employment I believe they could have produced a much more intelligent, more useful and more fruitful scheme than is represented by the Measure we are discussing.

12.28 a.m.

Mr. BRACKEN: I have no intention of making a long speech to-night, but as we are to vote £9,500,000 of public money I feel it desirable that the Financial Secretary to the Treasury should produce to the House the figures of the estimated earnings of the ships, which must have been supplied to him and were, I presume, checked by the President of the Board of Trade who is responsible for the shipping industry to this House. It is important for the House to know what are the estimated earnings of these ships, and also whether the Board of Trade did check the figures of the Cunard Line's estimate. As the President of the Board of Trade is responsible for the shipping industry to this House, we ought to hear from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury or from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade whether these figures have been carefully cheeked. Their is another point about which we would like information. We are told that the main reason for building these ships is because they will maintain a greater speed than any other vessels on the Atlantic. That may be the case, but I would like to know whether the Financial Secretary has taken the trouble to consult with the Commercial Counsellor at Berlin regarding the earnings of the "Bremen" and the "Europa." I have been making inquiries to-day, and I regret to say that the profits of these ships are nil as far as I have been able to discover. They can only cross the Atlantic because they are heavily subsidised by the German Government.
We are being told that if we vote this money we shall have the speediest vessels on the Atlantic, but what we really want to know is whether these ships are going to pay. At present Germany has the two speediest ships on the Atlantic, and they do not pay. Italy also has two fast ships running between New York and Southampton. Neither of these ships pays without a large subsidy from the Italian Government. I hope that the Financial Secretary will be able to assure the House that he has made inquiries regarding the earnings of these foreign vessels which are so much faster than our own.
Everyone in the House ought to protest most strongly that the President of the Board of Trade, who is responsible to us for the shipping of this country, or his Parliamentary Secretary, did not condescend to take part in this Debate. I think I might be able to supply a reason. He knows a great deal about the Shipping industry. He has had to clear up one of the worst messes ever made by bad finance in shipping, and perhaps he thinks that in the future he may be called in to clear up a similar mess created by his colleagues in the present administration.
I must say that I am surprised at the Government. I am not one of their most vehement critics. But I have always been unconvinced by, but interested in the arguments they have put forward against spending public money. As far as I can discover, they will only spend money on things like this Cunard Line subsidy, which is a gamble or a wanton speculation in shipping, or on things like the Codex, which gives so much pleasure to the present Chancellor. I want to protest against what has happened to-night. I think that the Socialist party are right in not opposing this Measure. They have had given to them the best piece of propaganda since this Parliament assembled. This is one of the most scandalous instances I have observed of improvident State Socialism. I hope the Lord President of the Council and other right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench will not in future tell us that the Socialist policy of doling out public money on all sorts of gambles is wrong in principle. They have proved to us to-night that it is the real policy of the Conservative party.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA rose—

Mr. C. WILLIAMS: On a point of Order. Can the hon. Gentleman speak without the consent of the House?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I was about to ask for that consent. Should the House refrain from giving it to me. I shall resume my seat. If the House desires me to reply—

Mr. WILLIAMS: On the point of Order. Has the House no protection or no means of getting the President of the Board of Trade here except by doing a thing that I am loth to do, that is, objecting to a Minister against whom I have no personal feeling?

Mr. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member ask me?

Mr. WILLIAMS: Yes, Sir.

Mr. SPEAKER: I have no power to answer his question.

12.35 a.m.

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: I am sure that the hon. Member would recognise that no Measure would be defended from this Box unless it were supported by the concurrence of the Cabinet as a whole. Whatever is said is said with the concurrence of the whole Government. This happens to be a Treasury matter, because it involves the expenditure of public money, and my hon. Friend must assume that it represents the united policy of the Government. The hon. Member for Bridgeton (Mr. Maxton) reproached me with having made some extracts from a speech of his which were not consecutive. I ask the hon. Gentleman to believe that I should be very loth to allow myself to fall into such a breach of etiquette. I quoted the hon. Gentleman in a consecutive passage, which I venture once again to read to the House. I only do so because it will, perhaps, satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster (Sir J. Wardlaw-Milne), who wanted in concise form a declaration of the Government's policy.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: Are we to understand that the hon. Gentleman said "Government's policy"?

Mr. HORE-BELISHA: Yes. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will await the extract. These are the words the hon. Member for Bridgeton used:
To us, the greatest maritime nation of the world, the greatest shipbuilding nation of the world, the fact that we should stop operations in such a way on this mammoth liner, which has attracted the eyes of shipping people throughout the world, will be a deadly blow which will have much wider repercussions.
I do not know what part of that the hon. Member desires to retract. It seems to me an admirable and a patriotic exposition of the policy of a great maritime nation. You have ruled, Mr. Speaker, several times during this discussion, that the Third Reading of a Bill is very much restricted. I beg my hon. Friend the Member for Kidderminster to recollect that the reasons for this policy have been expounded in the greatest detail. [Hon. Members: "Never."] Memories are short, and perhaps I may be pardoned for reminding the hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) that far from it having been the case that no statement has been made about the capacity of this ship, on Second Reading I began my speech in this way:
In December, 1930, the Cunard Company, in pursuance of a considered policy designed to maintain their outstanding position on the Atlantic, decided to lay down a ship which in size and speed was unlikely to be excelled by any other in existence or in contemplation. It was to be of 75,000 tons gross, the largest ship afloat, and of such a speed as to maintain a programme of fortnightly sailings across the ocean during the year, which no other service can at present provide."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 7th March, 1934; col. 1823, Vol. 286.]
That, I think, is a complete answer to my hon. Friend. What the earnings of this ship will be I cannot take the risk of prophesying, and I therefore cannot answer the hon. Member for North Paddington (MR. Bracken). It may be that our hopes will be disappointed. We have, however, decided to take the risk, and we are encouraged in taking that risk by the positive knowledge, which should meet with
the approval of any inflationist like the hon. Member for East Aberdeen that we shall put at work several thousands of people, upon a ship which, otherwise, having already had £2,000,000 worth of work spent on it, would go to rack and ruin. There will be, as the hon. Member for Dumbarton Burghs (Mr. Kirkwood) well knows—the hull being in his own constituency—positive advantages to many thousands of unemployed men, and even if we should be wrong, and even if we should fail to retain our proud position on the Atlantic, there will be some people who will be grateful to His Majesty's Government for undertaking a policy which at one time was unanimously urged on us.

Sir J. WARDLAW-MILNE: Before the hon. Gentleman sits down, may I ask whether he claims that the statement he has made is an answer to the very simple and quite courteous question that I put to him? I said that he had given me no estimate as what the result of running the ships was likely to be. He has answered that by saying that at the beginning of his speech on the Second Reading he gave long details, but that was no answer.

Mr. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman has already spoken.

Bill accordingly read the Third Time, and passed.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after Half-past Eleven of the Clock upon Thursday evening, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Seventeen Minutes before One o'Clock.